The Delta Flyers - Shakaar

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

The Delta Flyers is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, Terry Farrell & Armin Shimerman. In each podcast release, they will recap and discuss an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.This week’s episode, Shakaar, is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, Armin ShimermanShakaar: When the first minister of the Barjoran Provisional Government dies, Kai Winn is appointed to his duties and is about to be formally elected.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Production Managers Megan Elise & Rebecca McNeill.Additionally, we could not make this podcast available without our Executive Producers:Stephanie Baker, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Kris Hansen, Chris Knapp, Janet K Harlow, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, Mike Gu, Tara Polen, Carrie Roberts, Tom Paynter, Sandra Stengel, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Alex Mednis, Holly Schmitt, Roxane Ray, Andrew Duncan, David Buck, Tim Neumark, Ian Ramsey, Feroza Mehta, Jonathan Brooks, Matt Norris, Izzy Jaffer, Francesca Garibaldi, Thomas Irvin, Jonathan Capps, Chris Garis, Sean T, & Cindy WoodfordOur Co-Executive Producers:Liz Scott, Sab Ewell, Sarah A Gubbins, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Elaine Ferguson, Captain Jeremiah Brown, E & John, Deike Hoffmann, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Lee Lisle, Sarah Thompson, Holly Smith, Amy Tudor, Mark G Hamilton, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Mary Burch, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Elizabeth Stanton, Tim Beach, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, Tae Phoenix, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano,  Randy Hawke, Rob Traverse, Penny Liu, Stephanie Lee, David Smith, Stacy Davis, Heath K., Ryan Mahieu, Andrew Cano, Kevin Harlow, Megan Doyle, Keir Newton, Mariette Karr, Jeff Allen, & Tamara EvansAnd our Producers:Philipp Havrilla, James Amey, Jake Barrett, Ann Harding, Trip Lives, Samantha Weddle, Paul Johnston, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Carl Murphy, Jocelyn Pina, Chad Awkerman, AJ Provance, Claire Deans, Maxine Soloway, Heidi McLellan, Brianna Kloss, Dat Cao, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Alexander Ray, Vikki Williams, Cindy Ring, Kelly Brown, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Shanyn Behn, Renee Wiley, Maria Rosell, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Dominique Weidle, Jesse Bailey, Mike Chow, Matt Edmonds, Miki T, Heather Selig, Rachel Shapiro, Stephanie Aves, Seth Carlson, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, E.G. Galano, Annie Davey, Jeremy Gaskin, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Eddie Dawson, Klee Wiggins, Greg Kenzo Wickstrom, Lauren Rivers, Jennifer B, Dean Chew, Robert Allen Stiffler, PJ Pick, Preston M, Rebecca Leary, Ryan Mahieu, Karen Galleski, Nicole Brettell, Jan Hanford, Katelynn Burmark, Timothy McMichens, Lindsay Bundy, Dawn Colleen Smith, Cassandra Girard, Robby Hill, Andrea Wilson, Willow Whitcomb, Mo, Leslie Ford, Jim Poesl, Daniel Chu, Scott Bowling, Ed Jarot, James Vanhaerent, Nick Cook-West, Shawn Battershall, & Natalie SwainThank you for your support!This Podcast is recorded under a SAG-AFTRA agreement.“Our creations are protected by copyright, trademark, and trade secret laws. Some examples of our creations are the text we use, artwork we create, audio, and video we produce and post. You may not use, reproduce, or distribute our creations unless we give you permission. If you have any questions, you can email us at [e-mail] 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

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Delta Flyers' Journey Through the Wormhole with Quark, Dax, and their good friends, Tom and Harry. Join us as we make our way through episodes of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Your host for today are my fellow track actors, Armand Shimmerman, Robert Duncan McNeil, and myself, Garrett Wong, for the complete and exciting version. of this podcast, check out patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers and sign up to become a patron today. How is everybody today? I'm afraid that my hometown has been in a little bit of trouble, so my heart goes out to all the people in Ocean County, New Jersey, and everybody else

affected by the fires. I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah, that's rough. So many fires lately, the Palisades, Al-Sadena. When it comes to California fires, We hear about them all the time, but I don't hear about New Jersey fires all the time. Am I right? Is it correct to say that? There are a lot more East Coast fires than people realize. Like, we were talking about the similarities between where Armand grew up and North Carolina, where I was born and where a lot of my family was. Pine forest, pine trees, sandy soil.

And there's been fires down there in the Carolinas near the beach that just rage. South Carolina recently had a horrible, horrible fire. We've got some birthdays to call out for some very special birthday people, starting with Tay Phoenix. Tay, happy, happy birthday on May 6th. Happy birthday, Taye. Enjoy it. Tay Phoenix, it's your birthday, May 6th, happy birthday. Next up, we have Clark Ocicubo on May 6th as well. Happy birthday to Clark.

Clark, have a good birthday. Happy birthday, Clark. We've also got Heidi McClellan. Heidi McClellan's birthday is on May 7th. Happy birthday, Heidi. Happy birthday, Heidi. Happy birthday, Heidi. And we have Jennifer Vaughn on May 9th.

Happy birthday, Jennifer. Jennifer, happy birthday. Happy birthday, Jennifer. And on the 16th of May is Kitty and Armin's anniversary. Oh, really? Happy pre-anniversary. Thank you, thank you. Well, let's jump right into this.

Let's go into our poetry synopsis, starting with Robbie's Limerick. Let's go. Okay, here we go. My limerick for chakar. Here we go. Wynn needs Kira for a political aim. For some farming, there's some machines to reclaim. O'Brien's luck turns subpar.

Kira connects with. With Shakar, looks like Kira may have a new flame. Excellent. Exactly. She blew out the flame in the end. I got it. Good job. It feels like there's a lot going on between those two, but we'll talk about it.

I think that was the original pitch, by the way. Yes, it felt like it. Yes, yes, yes. Okay. Are we ready? Here we go. Yes. Here's my haiku for Shakar.

Kai's power too great Kira rebel fugitive Chief was in the zone Yes he was Absolutely absolutely Okay Etymology time Etymology and Garrett has set me up by saying in the zone

Obviously there are no definitions for Shakar in any of the dictionaries that I could find So I decided to look up zone. And I actually got carried away with that. So you'll have to bear with me for more than a couple seconds. All right. So from the Oxford English Dictionary, the definition of zone is a definite region or area of the earth

or any place or space that distanced from adjacent regions by some special quality or condition. The Cambridge Dictionary, if you are in the zone, you are happy or excited because you are doing something very skillfully and easily. Now, the origin of being in the zone. Oh, in the zone, the whole thing. In the zone is it started with tennis. Oh. The first citation was from tennis great, Arthur Ash. His quote is, I thought I was playing unconscious.

but Borg beat me and he is in what we call the zone that originally comes from the twilight zone and translates more or less into another world

so being in the zone is from Arthur Ash who picked it up from watching the Twilight Zone. Wow. So we've come full circle an expression that was mentioned in a TV show

ours, originally came from another TV show, The Twilight Zone. Oh, wow, nice connection. Yeah, and I had no clue it was Arthur Ash. And for our younger listeners who don't know who that is, Arthur Ash was basically the first African-American tennis champion, a very, very good tennis player. I grew up playing competitive tennis in junior high school. And we always talked about like, oh, my gosh, you know, so-and-so's in the zone. So we use that all the time, but I always felt that it was from another sport, not from tennis.

I thought, okay, people just use that, you know, from maybe from basketball or from baseball, but it was a tennis reference. Wow. It also surprises me that it's so recent because that sounds like that was in the 60s, maybe. Arthur Ash would have been, yeah, 70s. He would have been 60, 70s, I think. Yeah, that sounds about right. Yes, I think so.

Right. So it's fairly recent, but the fact that it's 20 and so. Fairly recent phrase. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. Very, very cool. All right. This is written by Gordon Dawson, directed by Jonathan West. Yes. RDP after Martin. I was surprised, Armin, that Jonathan directed, this would have been his first season. Yeah. As a DP on your show. It may be part of his negotiations. I don't know. I'm just making a guess that when he came on board, he said, you have to give me a slot as a show. a director or um you know burman was impressed with what jonathan was uh doing and offered it to him who knows yeah yeah because robbie are you kind of alluding to the fact that you thought that maybe jonathan would get a shot maybe season six or seven later in the in the yeah he's he started in season three as your dp yeah and i don't know if he directed any next gens or any i don't know how they would have known him before this year so he was coming in as kind of a new guy and getting an

so it very quickly for that. I will say this. Jonathan West, when you talk to him, you know, directly, is a very likable person. So I think whoever he interacts with, they're like, hey, I like this kid. So even Berman probably was like, yes, let him do this. I can understand that. And it's interesting to me that if I remember the chronology right, he directs after Renee directs. So usually a DP for a first time director is essentially.

because he can guide the new director in certain ideas. And I'm sure Jonathan did that for Renee. But it's interesting to me that even while he's guiding Renee, he must be thinking about the episode that he's about to do next. Yeah. What they normally do in that situation is they bring in another DP to DP while the DP is prepping to direct. Really?

Jonathan would not have. Oh, my God. Yeah. Because Marvin was over on your show. I would assume that Chris Cosgrove may have DP. He was the first cameraman, usually, and he may have bumped up to DP, because he went on to become a DP after the show was over.

I was looking to see if maybe they aired these out of order. Maybe they shot them in a different sequence and aired them so that Renee didn't direct right before Jonathan. They could have shot them in a different order, so that wasn't the case and then aired them in the order we see them. But as I look at online, it looks like they were produced in sequence at this point. So this is not a mixed-up air date or anything. So that would have been tricky to do Renee.

That's a good point, Army. Okay, guest stars. Duncan Reger is Shakar. We know him as Shakar, but evidently he has a last name as well, Eden. So Shakar Eden. It's interesting to me that Duncan, is also an Olympic fencer and an Olympic boxer. Or came very close.

Either he was in the Olympics or was in the preliminary before he was knocked out at the last round. And perhaps more importantly, is an internationally well-known artist. So his paintings hang in some really important places. Yes. But there's a moment in the show where he knocked somebody out. And I thought, well, he was a professional boxer. I wonder if he had a stunt person or he did it himself. I don't think he had a stunt person.

I think he did it. Rigaire has been painting and drawing since childhood. He first exhibited his artwork in 1974 at the Stratford Festival in Ontario. The following year, he showed at the Yorkville Arts Center in Toronto. Since then, he has had numerous exhibitions in Canada, Europe, and the United States. His work is found in collections worldwide,

including the Jilin collection in China, the Kuntzalan in Copenhagen, Focus on the Master's Archives for Getty Museum in USA and the Silavethi collection of Scotland. So this gentleman is all over the place. He's a real Renaissance man. He's a Renaissance man. But this episode in particular,

all of the guest stars are pretty much a Renaissance people. It's amazing to look at their background and we'll get into the other people. But you talked about fencing, Armin, okay? Well, he actually starred as Zorro in the Family channels, 88 episodes of a Zorro TV show as Zorro. So he had to do the, I'm sure his fencing ability helped him win that role. Yeah, for sure.

He also played on Star Trek The Next Generation during the seventh season in an episode called Sub Rosa, the character Ronan. So he's already done sci-fi before this. He's also Canadian from Lethbridge, which is south of Calgary. So he's an Alberta boy to begin with, then moved to BC. So he is from Canada. Nice. Yeah. Diane Salinger.

as Lupa Zah. Lupa Zah is best known for her role on the TV series Carnival. I don't know if you guys remember that. Oh, yes, I loved Carnival. 2003 to 2005. She played Apollonia on Carnival. So that was her role in that series, that popular series. She and I were married in a movie.

Really? She was your wife. Oh, my goodness. It was a movie called The Vern Miller Story. I met her years before Star Trek. years before Star Trek. Okay. And we were married. It was really good to work with her again. Although I had no scenes with her, but I did see her in the makeup trailer. Right. So when she came out of the makeup trailer, DS9, you walked in and said, hello, wife. How are you? Exactly. Exactly.

I love that. We also have William Lucking. Yes, Bill Lucking. Bill Lucky. He goes by Bill. Okay, Bill Lucking as Farrell. And Farrell is best known as for his role of Piney Winston. in the very popular television series, Sons of Anarchy. So he played at one of the bikers in that show. And our paths crossed on another TV show, one of my favorites on my resume, a show called Lazarus Man, which was Western. We spent a week together, and we had a lovely time,

and I was delighted to see him on the show when he showed up. Armie, did you know? He is a fellow UCLA graduate alumnus. I did not know that. Okay. He's originally from Michigan, but then he ended up, you know, going to UCLA. We probably, because we're similar ages,

we probably went to school together and I never knew that. And you didn't even know. Also, Bill Lucking was in another Star Trek episode, Star Trek Enterprise. The episode was called Bound. Next up, we have Sherman Howard as Syvar. Do you guys remember the Vulcan?

Is that the Vulcan? Yes, yeah. I wanted to know who that was. He was so good. He was good. But do you guys notice how it was like, where's this guy coming from this character came out of nowhere he's in the he's in the dart game and then that's it that's because there were all these other scenes that were written for him

that either got cut or didn't get filmed where he actually came to challenge o'brien because he was a darts master himself so he came on the station to say i challenge you okay there was a whole back story there because yeah you saw how you saw how he says if you leave the line you forfeit so this guy was totally serious in his delivery of his lines, but that's because there was all this backstory of how he came on the station. He was a science officer on one of the starships that came in that docked at DS9. He heard of O'Brien having this in the zone streak and he says, I can take him. I can beat him. So that was where that came up. There was a whole bigger story around there. Massive story. Casting wise, he's the most built or stocky Vulcan I've ever seen. Like if

you're going to talk about sports ball, most of the Vulcans that we've seen, whether it's Spock or Tuvok, they're built like sportsball defensive backs, okay? This guy looks more like a linebacker. Yeah, lean. This guy was, he was solid. He was solid. He began his acting career, basically, at ACT in San Francisco. Oh, tons of theater.

Another classical actor. Oh, my gosh. Lots of Shakespeare in his background as well. and he also was in two things. Star Trek Next Generation as Captain Endar. So he did an episode in 1990 of TNG. He did DS9. And then he went on to do Voyager, Robbie.

Really? Yes. He was so good in this. Can I tell you what he... You worked with him. Oh, my God. He worked in an episode called Prophecy. Prophecy is the episode where the Klingon's

show up and they think that balana and your child is the clingon savior okay oh yeah so then he played to greth he's the clingon that doesn't believe it because it's not pure blood because he realizes you're the father i remember him challenges you to a duel bay or something yes he was really good you duel oh no wonder i liked him because he was great and he was a great actor to hang out with i i i remember chatting with him oh thank you for making that connection because i i really did like him in the one scene in this episode and thought he was very skilled and very grounded and just had a lot of charisma and confidence. Yeah, he did a great job as a Vulcan for sure. And he played a Klingon, which is more suited to his girth, obviously. He's best known, though, for playing the zombie

bub in George A. Romero's Day of the Dead in 85. And also Lex Luthor, he played on Superboy from 90 to 92. So those are his most well-known. Yeah. Next up, we have John Doman, but I rather call him John Doman as Linaris Holam. He is the, if you recall, he is the Bajoran colonel that's down there in the valley. He helped save the stop the Civil War. Yeah, yeah. He liked his performance a great deal. Oh, my goodness.

He was born in Philly, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He had a BA, a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature, so not theater, from University of Pennsylvania. And then, while he was at U.Pen, he was a three. year letterman as a starting defensive back on their football team. Oh, my God. From 1963 to 65, he then earned his MBA after that. He served it with the United States Marine Corps.

Okay, so he was in the Marines as an officer, and he was in the Vietnam War with the third Marine division. Following graduation, then he spent two decades in the advertising business at which he actually, yeah, he had huge success there. ended up being executive VP of one of the biggest advertising firms. Then he decided in 1990, sorry, in 1991, he pivoted because he was this advertising exec, advertising exec, and he booked a commercial. He was casting a commercial for AT&T in 1991, and he says, I'm done with advertising.

I'm going straight into acting. So he went from, look at this career. He went as a college football player, starting football player. to the Vietnam War, the Marines, afterwards that he gets his MBA. He goes to the advertising agency for many, many, many years, and then says, hey, I'm going to be an actor. And he switched right there. Wow.

That's impressive. That's why he's John De Man, to me, instead of John Dole. And, of course, we have Louise Fletcher as Kai Wynn. We've already talked about her. What an interesting cast. The most interesting cast that I've ever seen of any cast that we've ever seen. And it's a big one, too, right? There's quite a few of those guys there.

I think we have two co-stars. John Kenton Schull as a security officer and Harry Hutchison as a trooper. So I think maybe one of them was the guys trying to arrest Chakar, right? And then there was another person. The trooper, I think, was a little early. Yes, the early. The itchy trigger finger guy was Harry Hutchison. Yes, those two.

There you go. All righty. Let's start it off. We're in Quarks. The game of darts is happening. and Miles is in the zone. He hits a bullseye. He beats Cisco.

Dax calls, and there's an urgent message from Bayjor. Dax says, so Cisco has to leave. He passes Bashir on the way out and says, and Bashir's like, have you seen where Miles is? Sisko looks around and says, he's in the zone. Back there. In the zone. Yeah.

Back there. He's back there. the zone. Yeah. Which is kind of a clever punchline. There's a comedic version of that, you know, line on the page that I thought was unusual for sort of the wordplay and the comedy. Yeah, especially coming out of Cisco's mouth.

Yes. Right? Yeah. Avery could be very funny if you gave him the opportunity. He had a wonderful, dry sense of humor and that line was right up his alley. That was a softball for him to hit. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Now we jump into Keir's quarters and we see this, it looks like some type of Bajoran shrine or whatever and she's speaking in Bajoran. This is the longest stretch of Bajoran language to be heard from her mouth. The doorbell rings and it is Cisco. Cisco has showed up. He's apologizing for interrupting. She says this is a Duranja. It's basically a lamp for the dead and she's praying for beryl to make sure that his. his soul or his spirit. Like a rosary or something. Yes, you could say that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I thought this scene started immediately the very first shot and on the heels of the last scene, the way that that one sort of was photographed. And I could tell immediately this is a DP directing. Like, how? What made you say? And I will say for the whole episode, the detail of the shots, the framing, the shot making was very skilled. You could just tell.

I thought of them. A lot of them were portraits. We started with a portrait of Cisco in the first scene. And the lighting on our actors never looked better in any light. Agreed. He lovingly lit them and shot them. And

whether it's a DP skill or not, but he certainly made the actors look great. Yep. Yep. It looked. It's a really, I'll spoiler alert, but I thought it's one of best-looking episodes I've seen of DS9 so far, this particular one. I thought you were starting with a critique, Robbie. You're actually complimenting.

Oh, no. Okay, good. Oh, I could tell it was a DP because it was beautiful. Every director brings a different skill set. If you've got an actor directing, then maybe the performances might be a little more creative. You get an editor in there. They're going to piece together a sequence that makes sense. Right.

But the DP, you get a writer in there and it's all about the words. know. Right. But this was a beautiful episode. I thought, I thought Jonathan did a great job. And this scene in particular coming around, wrapping around the fire to kind of reveal Kira there. Yeah. And the focus shift from the fire in the foreground to her face was great. Yeah. It's great. So you approve. Robby Duncanne approves. RDA approved. Okay. Cisco basically comes in to let her know that the first minister of Bejor has passed away of natural causes in his sleep we think because like when he's when she asked how and Cisco goes heart failure he died in sleep i thought maybe yeah i was a little i don't know about that especially when he reveals the next

bit of information which is the person who's been appointed to replace him like in the interim is none other than kai win they never say interim they don't say interim which is one of my pet peeves about this they should have said that they should have said interim but they should have said interim but they don't they don't they said they have already appointed someone yeah that you're right the new head of the provisional government is kai win temporarily right it doesn't say temporary which is antithetical to the ending of the election right because the election it hasn't even happened so it should say interim but they didn't do it right but the minute they said kai win i thought did he die in his sleep you know i immediately thought is this a kai win thing does she drop poison in the ear of kai of uh the minister who

knows. I think so. Okay. We go to the wardroom next and Odo is rattling off the activities on board the station, the calendar of people arriving and she is just not paying any attention. None. She's distracted by this news about Wynn. And Odo does comment, he says, you know, Wyn is very popular. People really love her. And Kira's feeling is no, she just cares about power. That's all she wants. Yep. They just don't know it. They've been brainwashed.

And Odo's comment at the end I liked when he says, you know, freedom of choice means that sometimes people make the wrong choice. I thought that was very wise. Very wise. I wish Jonathan and the actors had really studied that line. Because to me, everyone jumped to the assumption that the characters they were playing were only one quality. I saw this in Louise, I saw this in Kira, I saw this in several other characters. What's missing in this episode and this first scene is indicative of that is that people don't, didn't realize. The actors didn't realize that we need to play many different colors, not just one.

Because Kira is, yes, she's upset with Wynn. And she does have to learn to work with Wynn a little. So instead of being immediately antagonistic towards Wynn, she could have dampened that a little. And Louise, who was a dear, dear, dear friend of mine long before Star Trek. In fact, she talked to me about taking this role or not, just played it as though she was evil, you know? And so both you were saying, well, you poison the, you know, poison the room.

You shouldn't think that. You should think perhaps. Yeah. But not think, yes, of course, she was. would have done that. That's one of the things that as an actor on the show, I was continually fighting. Don't think of my character as one dimension. Right. Yeah. Show the layers. Get some layers in there. Yeah. Do you think Armin because a DP was directing that he didn't give any kind of acting notes at all? I don't call Jonathan on that because in my seven years, it was rare to get any direction

from anybody. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was always my choices that showed up on the screen. unless they've cut away to somebody else. Right. We are back in Kira's quarters, and now she's still praying to her lamp. And this time, her fire. Her fire. I have to make sure we talk about the fire

because that'll come back to play at the end. Yes. Now the doorbell rings. It's not Cisco, but Kai Wynn, who Kira is very shocked about. And this dialogue, I think what really, really stood out to me is that one part where Wynn is basically saying, because she thinks that Kira is doing the whole, you know, incantation or whatever, saying those for possibly the

minister that died, but she just died. Yeah, that just died. He's like, no, no. In fact, that was for Brile. And, you know, Wyn's taken back by that. She's like, wait a minute, that was months ago. That's like three months ago. But she did say something that was so. just, oh, he didn't want credit. He didn't want fame and glory. Right. He was very humble. He did this for the people. And if you loved him so much, I would think you would know that about him. Yes. It was very catty, I thought. Very catty. And the minute. And she didn't have to do that. No. Louise didn't have to do that. She could have made it as warm as possible. She, it's only that I know I'm the villain, therefore I'm going to say this in a catty. Right. Yeah. But I just love her reaction because

Kira's reaction to that, she's pissed, but she doesn't say anything. She walks away from Wynn, grabs the chair, pulls it out, and basically, and then walks around. And that was her, I just love how that was blocked by Jonathan. I thought that was super cool. I was going to say the very opening of this. So Kira's praying again. And he had that beautiful shot, the first time she was praying through the fire. He has another beautiful shot where he starts up over her.

Yeah. Comes around. So two similar moments, but he found two. really unique ways to open those scenes and it's just well staged and it's a long long scene and what you're talking about when kira reacts or you know holds her reaction goes over to the table yeah that's a great idea like super cool lots of angles lots of shots but it was very efficiently done and had a lot of variety to it they sit down they stand up they come close to each other that's a lot of shots speaking of standing up everyone should watch our show and watch when

people stand up. Watch how they just slowly rise. It's glad they care operator to fall. Yeah, if you pop out of the chair, you'll pop out of the frame of the shot. So you learn to sort of slowly get up. It's so funny. But that's a lesson that we all learn as actors. Like you got to be like molasses when you're getting up or else you're going to be,

yeah, you'll be out of frame. And no one you'll notice for the, I can give this away for the rest of the show. Whenever they come through a door, invariably, No one speaks until the door is closed. Because, you know, if you speak when the door is closing, you'll have to go to ADR and place the dialogue. Yeah, you don't want to loop. Okay. Well, Wyn's there for one purpose.

Wyn is excited about the fact that Bayjor is submitting their application to be part of the federation. And part of that is taking Rekantha. Rekhanta is a province on Bayjor that used to be the most. fertile in terms of crops that they would grow there. But when the Cardassians left, after the occupation ended, they did something that a lot of occupying armies do, which is just trash everything. So they poisoned the soil. Everything's mad. So they need these soil reclamators. But unfortunately, the soil reclimators were promised by the recently deceased minister, yes, to the Bajorans that are in decor province.

Decor province is Kira's home province. So now it is Wynne's decision that those soil reclamators, which have only been there for a couple of months, and they were promised to the decor farmers for a whole year, now have to be returned to the government because this is Kai Wynne's job now, I guess. This is her plan. Yeah, if she can do this, then they'll have trade.

They'll be able to export crops. They'll be able to be successful. as a society, and that'll help them get into Starfleet. And it's an incredibly valid point of view. The greater good. It's the greater good. The greater good for Bejor, exactly. The greater good for Bejor.

Right. And it will not only help them get into Star, into the alliance, but also it will help commerce. It will help trade. They'll have exports. That's right. It's a really good point. As the episode progresses, I think we lose sight of that really good argument.

Yes, for sure. So the reason why Wynn is talking to Kira about this is because A, she's from Decor province, B, the person who has these soil reclamators is Shakar, her old rebel leader, her old rebel resistance leader, basically, Shakar, who she fought with and knows very well. So she, you know, Wyn thinks that maybe Kira can bend his ear and get these soil reclomators back. And Kira is like, look, I can talk to him, but I cannot guarantee that he's going to listen. So Wynne's like, well, Vedic Beryl said you were very persuasive. So put your mind to it.

And she leaves. Now, I just want to say right now, the original pitch for this episode was that Chakar was protesting the building of a museum in that province. And he felt that he was like, no, we're going to protest this because these funds should be allocated for the starving people of this province, not to a museum. And then all the writers are like, this is not really, this is not really selling it. And then Ron Moore was the one like, hey, why don't we say that this is because they need to, you know, take these soil reclamators, make this a political thing where the head of the spiritual world is now the head of the, you know, is government. governing the people now as well. So there's that type of conflict going on between, you know, church and state. But that would have helped your argument, Arm, and if it wasn't both of them trying to farm, if Wynn had the argument of, this is for our culture, it's a museum or a building, we need

these machines. And they're going, no, you know, the other guys are going, no, we need to feed people. Like, yeah. And I could have seen two distinctly different arguments. But when you're saying, I'm going to farm for everybody or we're going to farm for just you guys, I think. everybody is a better choice yeah and i actually prefer what the writers chose to do um because it is a choice between the the particular which is the the farmers of dakar province or the the economy of the whole planet it's between the particular and the general uh shakespeare would say and i love that idea and i just thought that really good idea for conflict got lost later on in the episode.

Yeah, valid point. They didn't really compare and argue that point at all, really. It's implied, but it's never explicitly sort of argued. Yeah. Also, random fact, Gordon Dawson, the writer of this episode, he and Iris Stephen Bear, they worked together previously on the television series, Brett Maverick. So that's how they knew each other.

And I think that's probably how he ended up getting this writing assignment. Interesting. But yeah, but the whole Ron Moore decision to have Kai Wynne tried to take over as the political leader as well was what injected more drama and more conflict into the episode. And that's why they went with that. Well, I like as Wynn leaves, she kind of throws out. And before that, she says, I don't want a scandal. I want this settled peacefully, quietly. Surely we can both agree that that's a worthy goal.

And ironically, where the episode ends up is antithetical to that. But I think that sometimes the things that Wynn does, like when she's leaving, she says, you know, Vetter, she stops herself, turns back after she's asked Kira to do this. Because, you know, Vedic Bariah used to tell me that you could be quite persuasive when you put your mind to a child. I hope he wasn't mistaken. So she's using the information of, you know, she walks in on Kira praying over, beryl and then uses that it feels manipulative to me very much it is manipulative very much that's that's my fault with louise's performance yeah it doesn't have to be you can say that line really

quite nicely you didn't have to twist your mustache and i love louise and she's a great great actress and a greater woman which was um but um she didn't have to do it this way um and i thought everybody was twisting their mustache in the A story a lot. Well, also, you talk about how you've known Louise forever, and we've heard about that from you before. But what we have not heard is that she called you when she was on the fence about accepting this role. Yeah, she did.

So I guess we have you to thank for her appearance. I don't know if you have me to think, but I certainly helped. She called and said, you know, her question, her big question to me was, And I can't replicate how she said Bajoran, but it was totally wrong with what she said it. The Bajaran's. Yeah, and maybe that was it, yeah. Badgerand. She said, so this is, I've seen a little bit of show.

How much makeup does a Bajaran have? And I said, oh, Louise, it's nothing. It's a little piece of rubber on your nose. It's nothing at all. You have nothing to worry about the makeup. Right. And she said, okay. And she didn't say that she was going to take the job,

but at least she, her mind was eased about the makeup. About two episodes, maybe even this episode, I don't remember one of the episodes, she called me back up and said, all right, you told me there was nothing as far as on my face, but you didn't tell me about the two hours of hair that had to, I had. That's funny. And I said, Louise, what would my character know about hair? Funny.

For all the horrible characters that she has played. yeah inside was the kindest warmest uh loveliest person um we kitty and i always call her lulu and uh she was terrific and and when you come to visit my house you'll see paintings that lulu sold us oh oh really she's an artist as well she was an artist distributor okay she bought art uh in france and bring it and brought it back to the states oh my goodness and then would sell it as an art dealer. Oh, wow. Wow.

Very cool. That sounds like a great job. All these Renaissance people. I know. What a great Renaissance guest episode, basically. Well, we go to Shikar's Farm next, and first we see Kira coming down a very steep slope of, you know, kind of deserty, dry, rocky soil. And very smart of Jonathan to do that. Yeah.

He shows us how rocky. and had desolate the farm is. Yes. Normally, she would have beamed down by the front door. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, he didn't have to do that. No, he was very smart in the filmmaking side of things,

in the storytelling with the camera. He was really good at that consistently. I'm going to quiz you, Robbie. I'm going to quiz you. Where do you think those exterior shots were filmed? I have no idea. I was trying to figure it out. Bronson Canyon.

Was it really? I know. It doesn't see. Right, does it? Because Bronson Canyon is a little more lush from what we know. So I guess there are portions of Bronson that are a little more deserty looking. Wow. Yeah.

That was Star Trek's favorite place to go. And Batman, of course. Yeah. It was so cold in Bronson that a lot of the shots were never completed, but they were rewritten so that they could be filmed inside the studio because of how cold it was. Really? Yeah. Yeah.

I didn't know that it could get that cold, but I guess it did then. Must have been a real cold snap. Well, she walks up to the cabin. It looks deserted. Suddenly a hands on her shoulder. She jumps. And they have this back and forth that makes it seem like they're angry with each other. You cut your hair.

You let yours grow. Yeah. Like you, the old way. I was thinking the same about you. Yeah. And then they laugh. It was a fun bit. I wish it had just been faster.

Yes. To me, that was a moment where I was like, oh, I get the idea here. I don't know whose idea it was. Right. Jonathan's or because I don't think it was scripted right to play it that way oh it had to be scripted really okay oh of course it had to be scripted to play it that way oh to play it that way no I'm sorry I heard that wrong yeah they would have they would have definitely said the words but to play this sort of standoff of like they're angry with each other right that felt to me like

actor choices or a lack of chemistry oh oh spoiler alert I yeah possible But I agree with Robbie. I think if the pacing was sped up just a bit on that, it would have been funnier. It still would have worked too, right? So it would have worked and it would have been funnier. Yeah. Took too long to sort of land as a joke.

Right. Okay. Playfulness. But they hug, they go inside and inside. They come in with the door wide open, looks around. I think he goes to make her some tea or something like that. Yeah. But did you notice that Kira left the front door wide open when they

came in the house. Well, I think he came in after her. He's the one that he let her in first. He didn't close the door. He came in, opened the door. She came in after that, I think. Okay. But they did leave the door open. Yeah, they did. It was funny to me because every DP always asks when I'm directing or, you know, on set. They're like, hey, you know, when they come in that door from the other room, can they just leave the door open so you get the light? Or, hey, when they walk over there, could they just open up the curtains a little more and get more light? They're always looking for like how to push light in the room. Yeah. And so I was just like, oh, they left the door wide open.

I don't know if you would do that in real life. You'd come in. You'd shut the door, but it's Jonathan directing. So he gets to. He gets to do that. The DP, who always wants light in the scene, gets to leave the door wide open. Yeah. Just a little detail. Yeah. I noticed it too. He makes her tea on like a stove. It's got some buttons, but I love the analog vibe of it all. Like it's, it's, you know, it's not a replicator. It's sort of a hybrid old school stove with a technology or something. I thought that was cool. Yeah.

And yet outside the door, outside, there was some machine that looked very modern, very 23rd century. Yeah. That must have been the machine that she was coming to get, maybe, the replicator. Maybe. Maybe that's what that was supposed to be. They never really pointed it out. So maybe that was. No, we never, to my mind, we never see the replicator.

Not the replicators, the reclomators. Reclamators, yeah. But they talk about old friends and old times. They talk about Farrell and Lupiza, who are now farmers too. Kira can't believe it. And then Kira says, she's here on business. And Chakar says, yeah, I know why you're here. I need some time to think about this.

How does he know that? I don't know. Yeah, that's true. How does he know that? Well, little birdie. I don't know if Wynne was trying to surprise him with her plan. She may have said, hey, we really need. those replicators and your friend

Kira agrees she's going to come talk to you about it. I don't know. Or he just, she sent that message and he didn't respond, you know? Something like that. We need those to back and there's no response and then she sent Kira. Or he's a really good rebel who has Intel all over the place.

All those are good answers to my question. Okay. Moving on. But now we get to the important stuff and that takes place at Quarks of course. there's a dart match going on O'Brien gets another bullseye

It starts with Terry though And it's a close-up on Terry Concentrating And I made a note That she has the most serious look on her face I've ever seen in the series so far It's like Because it's tight and you're like

Is she in a battle? Is there like some big sci-fi threat going on? No, it's just a dark. Terry's seriousness was yeah it was great I loved it but he throws another bullseye he wins again

everybody applauds quark starts announcing the odds for the next round quark is making some money clearly off of us he's been betting on it already been betting on it yeah but Miles says no I've got to leave

for my shift and quark formally announces to the room Chief O'Brien must leave now please make way make way or something you're like it's like royalty yeah he's doing really well for you i think quark says that's 47 wins is that in this scene uh somewhere like that let me see if i have it yes 47th straight victory is that in this

scene yep i think so yeah oh yeah okay 47th straight victory so this is important to quark um yeah cork sort of walks him out and cork says something about tomorrow well when you come back tomorrow and miles is like no i think i'm going to take the day off go to the hollow sweet do some kayaking or something tomorrow instead and Quark says, oh no, not kayaking. First you lie and you say that the Mollosuite's lost. And then you're like, look, you're on a street. Just keep going.

You don't know how far this can go. See how far it can go. Quark's afraid that he might damage the golden shoulder is the phrasing that he uses. I love that. So Brian's like, okay, so you're offering 10 to 1 to anyone's going to bet against me tomorrow? And Cork's like, yep.

And he's like, I think you should make it 15 if I were you. So he's in. It's starting to feel good. Corp is so happy. You know, I think it's the only time. Here's a spoiler. I think it's the only time that O'Brien ever listens to Quark and says, you know what? Okay, I won't go kayaking tomorrow.

I'll come back and make it 15 to 1. Yeah. I think it's the only time. The only time. The entire series. I think so. Here it is. Yeah.

Well, it works. He's feeling the luck. And so. So he says up the odds. We go back to Shakar's house later that evening. They're reminiscing. The gang is all reminiscing together. Farrell, not the singer, by the way.

Not Farrell, the singer. Farrell, the one-armed man. The one-arm man. He explains why he didn't get his arm replaced. Yes. He said he prayed to the prophets that he would exchange his life if, you know, the prophets would spare the rest of them. Yeah.

And he ended up being able to save them, and he only lost an arm. so he feels like, you know, the prophets were generous to him. We're generous and didn't want to step on that generosity. I thought Bill did that speech rather well. He did. Armand's movie wife, Lupiza, is in this scene. And, of course, everyone has the same belief of Shakar, which is we are not going to give up these soil reclamators to the government.

And you can just send that message right back to Kai Wynn. Dear, dear, dear, dear, Kira. Yeah, send that message. And now she goes, who wants Towali Pi? So they're just moving on. They're not taking this request seriously at all. And we see Kira having a problem with this, knowing full well, this is going to be difficult. Yeah.

That's the last time we see her problem. She's on team rebels after that. Yeah, she's on team rebels. It really is a very complicated issue. If you think about it, if you take all the personalities out, it's the general versus the particular. It's a wonderful philosophical issue that I wish we had dealt more. They didn't really deal with it.

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Well, we go outside for the next scene. There's a big, wide, wide establishing shot. Then it jumps into Kira and Shakar talking outside. Yeah. But in the wide shot, I didn't see anybody. It was weird to me. Like, you see the empty house and the big field, and suddenly you cut in, and they're magically there.

And I was like, whoa, that seemed like a drop ball to me. Really? So in the establishing wide, you see no human, no Bajorans at all. I didn't see any movement. Hars sitting out there chewing on a straw. A straw. Okay. He should have been in that wide shot and the door should have opened

and we should have seen Kira coming out. And then they cut in tighter a moment later. And she's walking from the door to talk to him. but it was just an odd it's it's it's one of those continuity things you know people catch when you're watching a movie and you see yeah in one shot someone's drinking a glass of water and then it cuts to a new angle and suddenly they're just sitting there and right water's on the table and you're like that doesn't match yeah it's that sort of that was that sort of thing for me I was like okay wait a minute well good catch rob because I didn't catch it it must have been I didn't either

yeah it was very dark I thought it established him standing there with his foot on the whatever his foot was on and he was sucking under straw okay Okay. But I don't remember clearly, but that's what I remember. Yeah. Well, Kira comes out. She says Bejor could export lots and lots of food if he would give these replicators back. So she's still trying to convince him. She is. But Shikar says that they're trying to feed their own people.

Why are we talking about exporting stuff when we're starving here? So there's some arguments on your point, Armin, there a little bit. Well, the very last line when Shikar's. says, good, because we've all missed you, especially me. Did that give either of you sort of the feeling that these two have had a little bit more, you know, friendship, yeah, very romantic moment, the way he sort of held her arm and he even had elevator eyes a couple of times seen. I will, I'll say it out loud.

He did the old up and down, checking her out. so there's some past history then between these two yeah that goes beyond work is what we're going to say seems like it yeah it looks like it speaking of elevators yeah Duncan yes Bill yeah Diane yeah they're all very tall people true yes yes I was looking at that in the in their bios six two six three yeah yeah yeah I mean it's the only time I've and even Cisco doesn't do it as much, but they towered over Nana. Yeah.

They were, they, it was like, it's the way I feel usually working with other people. And I wonder, was that a choice to hire three very tall people? I doubt it was. I think it was coincidence. I think it was just coincidence. And you forgot to add your good friend Lulu. Lulu's also a very tall person in this episode.

Yes, Lulu, but not as tall. as tall as they are. Yeah, they're pretty tall. Well, we go to Wynn's office next. The establishing shot of Bejaro, by the way, I made a note. It looks like ancient Greece to me. It does. Doesn't it?

Yes, it does. It really did. And Lyon for Ranganard, there are rounded structures. There are domed mushroom-shaped structures. There are, but there's more round happening on Ferengenar. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. There's like some columns.

It almost look like the Acropolis. It looked like, yes, Grecian structures, absolutely. Yeah, definitely. It was very pretty. Kira comes to tell Wynne, though, that they need, you know, Shakar and his gang are going to need the equipment for at least six months. Just give it to him for six months. And Wyn's mad about that.

She's like, planting season's going to be over. Right. She turns in this scene, you know, hoping for good news to angry. She calls him prideful, Shakar. She just calls him names. Which actually doesn't make you an evil person. Yeah. She's looking out for the side of the argument that is the general. This is best for our home world. And yes, sometimes people have to be sacrificed or wishes have to be sacrificed for the

general good. It doesn't make her a villain. You don't have to play that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, she calls him prideful and arrogant. And then you can see her sort of check out because Kira says, well, I've arranged a meeting for you too. You can negotiate. You can talk about this. And Wynn goes, sure, tell them whatever you want. It's fine. But you're done.

Kira, thank you. You can go back to the station. Give my regards to Commander Sisko. Yes. The emissary. The emissary. Right. Yeah.

That will be all my child. She always calls her my child. Yeah. Yeah. It's a very condescending sort of way of. It is. It is. It is.

This kept popping in. into my mind. Reclamators are machines. Yeah. Yeah, just make some more machines. Just make some more machines. What's so difficult about that? You know, Cisco built a spaceship in two weeks by himself. That is so true. So your argument, Armin, is why can't you replicate a reclimator? Hello? Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Solve this problem. I mean, and we didn't mention in the previous scene, We find out that Chigar was promised these machines by the previous administration. They waited three years for these machines. So they have every right to want them.

Most definitely. They have every right to want them. Yeah. And they don't want them forever. They just want them for the whole year they were promised. That's it. So that their land will be arable again. That's all.

It's a very good dilemma, which I've said it enough times. Yeah. No, you have. Kira goes back to Choucar's house. She's still trying to help. A compromise get reached here when suddenly some police or security forces come to arrest Chakar. And there's a little, I wrote down, boom, bang, punch. There's a little, it was some good punching, actually.

And now it makes sense. He's a boxing expert. Yes, that makes sense. It was very good hand-to-hand, quick punches. Supervised by Danger Madelone, of course. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. But the security forces are down on the ground, knocked out. And then Shakar, very sensitive and caring. He says, you know, you can get out of this. There's still a way to explain this away. And, you know, you don't have to get in trouble for this. Kira's answer is no. When lied, lied to me for the last time. And I wrote down probably not the last time when last. But yeah, so Kira's on team rebels now.

Yes, team fugitive. Why? Why? And I thought of that as well. Like, okay, so now they've done this, they're going to go on the run. Their whole point was to fight for the machines. Now you can't farm. The whole thing that you were, you know, arguing is a waste of time at this point because now you're on the run.

Can't do anything. Just give me the machine. That's where it jumped a shark for me. I went, no. Although the reason is Gwynn is it's Kai Wynne is the reason. She's the reason we're doing this. We all hate Kai Wynne. But if it's as important as the issue seems to me that you need to think about this a little bit more.

Yeah. And I mean, she was there to try to persuade him. She was doing her best. She was trying to persuade him. And then like that, she switches. And she has her responsibilities back at deep space stuff. Yeah, yeah. Yes, I had a comment on that as well.

Like, she's been gone a long time. Now she's on the run. The ship doesn't seem to know much about what's going on or care. She's number two on the station, by the way. Right, right. But this is still her home province. This is where she grew up. So she feels, you know, her allegiance is to the people that are here.

That's what it is. I understand that. Yeah. But she should also be a diplomat, which she was originally was trying to do. She saw the, she saw the, dilemma. And she was trying to find a way out, you know, peacefully. This is not peacefully. No. Well, she let her emotions get the best of her, clearly. And she ran away with them. Well, speaking of not clear, peacefully, we go into some caves here. Yes. We see that our gang is

opening up giant boxes of weapons. Tons and tons of weapons. Yes. In fact, this is the very first time that we even see Bajor and phaser rifles. We don't see them. Oh, is it really? Yeah, because we Bajoran phasers, but not phaser rifles. The rifles are here. The caves, this is not on Paramount Studios. Do you remember how cold it was in Bronson? I was wondering because you could see light at the end of the tunnel. I'm like, that doesn't seem like the normal cave.

So remember how cold it was? So when they all said we can't, we cannot film because it's so cold, the crew took it upon themselves to film the cave scenes that were supposed to be filmed at Paramount at the actual caves at Bronson Caves, Bronson Caves. You see what I'm saying? They just said they flipped it. They're like, hey, they flipped it. They took the scenes in the caves from stage, put him out of bronze.

And put them in real caves, yeah. Oh, interesting. Yeah, just to use up the time. I would say, because we just shot in a bunch of caves for the last episode of Resident Alien a month ago, not even a month ago. And caves can be colder than outside sometimes. I'm surprised that that was their solution. Oh. Well, they could put heaters in a cave.

Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, and you don't have wind hitting you. That's, that's very true. Yeah, very true. Okay. Well, they decide to load up on all these weapons, and just like the old resistance days,

they're going to go on the run. Yep. Off they go. Off we go to Quarks. We're in Quarks next. This is the 47th darts match in the session. Okay, so I was wrong about 47 before, is what you're telling me. But, no, but it said 47 in the, in the thing.

It did say it. Maybe this is the 48. Yeah, this is the 48th match. 48th match. With our favorite Vulcan, Sybar. Yes. And it seems that O'Brien is still in the zone. Yeah.

And Quark is so happy. He's giving him a free beer just the way he likes it. In a coffee cup. That's what we serve Ractogenos. It was a mug. Not a pint? No, no. It was a strange prop.

Why did they give me that? Because that's what we serve Ractogenos. That's what we serve coffee. Yeah, that's a Ractagino cup. Yes, and you're a classy bar. You would have specialty glasses for all these drinks. God knows we had them, you know. Maybe Chief likes it served in a Ractagino cup.

Maybe. Maybe it was easier to grab, well, he doesn't really, yes, he does grab it. He does, because that's how he, I have a problem with him being injured that easily. He's much damage by just reaching behind him. I mean, I know you can like tweak a thing. I get it.

But I wish there had been a little more in action to this giant rotator cuff tear that happens. Like if someone fell into him or something, you know, where you had another force. But on the other hand, you have to understand my line, which is it wasn't any, there wasn't anything. It was just, you know, I didn't do anything. All I did was hand him a drink. That's your final tagline, yeah. You have to navigate between the two things. That's true.

That's true. okay yeah it's a freak accident it's a it's a freak it is a freak it is a really freakazoid accident yeah but but but that's still believable i think as human beings we have all had weird accidents that we didn't do anything but something happened yeah that's what i broke my foot getting out of bed pretty much yeah i literally did yeah and kitty broke her foot just stepping from one step to another on a stairway yeah wow yeah well his luck has run out and again our our our Vulcan in this scene is Saivar is very good

I like to work. And off O'Brien goes to you know work on the rotator cuffed hair and give him some surgery in the infirmary quark is in shock. All I did was hand him a drink. I like this storyline.

I do like this story. We go to Wynn's office. I have to say what are those two giant balls on her desk? That's in my reaction video as well. Mine, too. We both have the same reaction video. I mean, a desk usually is for writing or spreading out, you know, files or pads or whatever.

There's no room. She's got these two giant balls that don't seem to do anything. Oh. Are they to hold on to in case an earthquake happens? I don't know. I thought they were maybe going to be like giant roller, what are they called? Like roller ball pads, like mouse roll. Oh, like a huge mouse.

Like she can roll things, but they don't roll. They kind of have a ball. I don't know. Then I thought maybe they were bells that she would hit like, like some type of spiritual thing. Maybe some sort of. Okay. Yes.

Okay. But still very confusing. Like, so in my reaction video, I even ask the fans, please, somebody out there, please explain these to me. Someone might know this is some type of pejoran, yeah, thing. The desk balls were very distracting. Anyway, the whole set tells us that she, is the boss is the boss yeah this is not someone running for office this is her office yeah this is not

if she was still running she would have a more religious background she would have a more religious set right this is an official office this is the head of the provisional government yeah keep that in mind for my later discussion okay okay all right well i wrote down in this scene when behaves like a theocrat and a fascist. That's an interesting story to tell, too. And I don't know that they investigate that as much, but it's a timeless. There's not enough time. That's why. There's not enough time in the episode to research. I wish that they had picked one of these ideas. And flesh that out, right? You're talking about the general versus the specific. To me, this idea of theocracy and fascist rise to power and how it happens would be a really interesting investigation. Yeah. And, and they'd

don't really explore those two bigger philosophical ideas very deeply. All we have is Odo saying to Kira that they like her because she got a piece with Cardassia, which we never hear about again. We should know this very, I totally agree with you. This part of the story is a different tangent altogether, a wonderful tangent to explore. Yeah, yeah. And I, instead of making it one episode, maybe they should have made it two episodes. Yeah. Yeah. Great idea. That would have been good.

We learned that they've been on the run for two weeks now, two weeks since they took off from the caves with their weapons. And Cisco hasn't heard from Kira for two weeks? That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. But we learn that it's dividing the Bajorans, that they're kind of picking sides, that there's some rebels, you know, people that are aligning themselves with these. Rebels that are on the run, others that align themselves with her position. So it's creating a real political problem, civil war. In every other episode, when one of the series regulars goes missing for five minutes, Sisko puts out a patrol to find out what happened to so.

Send out all the runabouts. Doesn't, okay. Two weeks goes by. His first hasn't been seen. He's playing darts with miles. He's playing darts, right. Can I just state the obvious? Doesn't Kira have a comm badge on her?

where they could just track it and say, there she is, she was there in decor promise. Some explanation would have been really helpful because it's just glossed over. So, yeah, sure, we could say. But if she has a Com badge and says, Commander, I'm on the run with the rebels down here, he would stop everything.

He'd stop the dark games. He'd stop all the fun. And he'd deal with this. And it doesn't seem like the station is on the same track as Kira. Right. Well, Wynn is there to ask for a favor. She wants Cisco to provide a Federation security force to go after the rebels. Yeah.

So it's like, no, we can't. Cisco says that's against, the Federation is not allowed to interfere with Bajoran internal affairs. I wish she had said the prime directive. Yeah, because that's what it is. It's the prime directive. Yeah. I wish he had said it. The prime directive of the Federation is not interferes.

to not interfere. And it's an easy way out for Cisco. Yeah. He doesn't have to argue with Wynn. Well, those are the rules. The rules are that we have the prime directive and we can't interfere. You're not a member of the alliance, so therefore we can't interfere. It was a lovely way out.

I like that choice the writer's made. Avery doesn't say it in a threatening way. He just simply says, well, that's the law. And that's the way I wish more the actors had performed in this. Okay. I hear you. But when he does say, we can't do this because of the prime directive, Wynn plays hardball.

She says, oh, well, if we can't depend on Federation, well, we will withdraw our membership for our application for membership in the federation, which Cisco says, well, and again, Cisco's very calm, isn't what that would be, an unfortunate overreaction on your part. And, well, in fact, this whole response to the crisis is an override. So he really calls her out. Right, but he doesn't do it until the end, until the end. The very end.

You don't know what he's thinking until the end. That's the right way. Those are the right choices. Okay. His argument is literally, you're going to risk civil war over a couple of soil reclamators. Which we can replicate in five minutes, by the way. But she doubles down.

She's like, this isn't about soil reclamators. This is about the future, the entire future of our society. Right. It's a negotiation. Yeah. And I've been in negotiations. that's what people do yeah yeah well she's she's making it a test of of you know bejorn society a test of of their faith within the prophets she's making it a test of that's why i say it's this theocratic sort

of fascist way of dealing with things that um yeah just it starts to turn in into a political story to me in this scene very that's right that's right that's right A good theme for an episode, but now we have two major themes that are now in conflict with each other. Exactly, exactly. We go to the hills. We're on some barren hills

with our group that's on the run, and they're sliding down the side of this mountain. I was very impressed with the first team actors. That looks significantly dangerous, to be honest. Yeah. And Bill has no other arm to balance his weight going down a hill. Oh, that's right.

I thought, good for you, Bill. That's got to be difficult when you only have the one arm to sort of balance with. Yeah. Okay. So in real life, he is only with one arm, is it what you're saying? No, no, no, no, no. In the show, he has one arm only. Yeah, in the show.

So, yeah, I mean, he's wrapped up in his costume, obviously. But even so, you usually use both arms to balance. Like a counterweight. Yeah. That's probably the steepest grade I've ever seen in any Star Trek episode. Right. Yes. Yeah.

This whole scene. Except for the one where we were, do you remember when we were on, oh, you didn't go there? We were on location in Lone Pine that one time. We were running down the hill and Sue, Kate Stand-in, tripped and rolled down and had to go to the hospital. And speaking of rolling down hills and being precipitous, does Keir's costume ever get dirty? Why have a question about that later on? She seems like she's in the same clothes. We've seen her running around the same clothes for two weeks,

more, at least two weeks. And, yeah, I have a comment about it. And the other side is all dressed like Kira. So wouldn't you think that to be less conspicuous that she would change clothes? They must have had some clothes. I'm sure Diane had some clothes, maybe too large for her. But there had to be some clothes. They could replicate clothes.

that you know this is not a problem right yeah why did she have to stay in the uniform why yeah yeah yeah good point well uh they come down this hill they're on the run it's we learned that they almost got caught and then care pulls out this device that sends out fake life sign signals so um you know the people chasing them the security people chasing them get pretty close and suddenly she hits that that machine from behind a rock and they turn they stop they turn look back the other way and they head out. They make a plan. Yeah.

Start figuring what are we going to do? We can't keep running like this because they're going to, we're not going to be able to evade them much longer. Do you guys recall that happening, this type of technology and any other episode of Trek, that projects false life signals? I don't think that's been used before. I mean, typically there's like a dampening field where people's, you know, tricoters won't work because someone pushes some type of thing which stops them for. being able to scan, but this is projecting their life signs to another location.

I've never heard of that before. I like it. I do. I like it. It's very cool. And it may be a Bajoran device and not a Starfleet device. Maybe something that Bajoran's used. Yeah, that makes sense.

Well, Farrell and Loup is a want to fight, just like the old days. Let's just take them on. Let's fight, punch them in the nose. Kira thinks they can't keep running, so that everybody's kind of trying to figure out what to do and that's when Shakar says okay let's go to tannis canyon and basically he wants to box them in and then ambush them in this box canyon dead end canyon right um and then they head out and i love jonathan's you know finish of the scene this low angle of them kind of walking almost over the lens that was cool either rocks and beautifully photographed another uh qualm chakar

says uh to to to dyan's care at luponset louv help me with that with It's the character's name. Lupiza, Lupiza. Lupisa. It says to Luposa, you take up the rear. So they leave, the shot you're talking about, and she's up there with the others with Curate. And I'm thinking, aren't you supposed to take up the rear?

He's just a tweet. I didn't catch that, but good catch. Yeah, if your car says, Lupizuze, you take up the rear. And she's in the front. Rear is pejorin code for take point. You're in front. Yeah. Watch my butt.

It's opposite day. It's opposite day. It's opposite day. watch my butt tannis canyon we're there the rebels are on the ridge looking down into this box canyon I love this opening shot

to kind of wrap around and reveal the security forces down below them very cinematic in two different costumes the rebel the government troops are summer in gray summer in the same color

as carriers wearing and I go why why are they in different color? I wonder. I feel like wardrobe didn't have enough to cover everybody. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe Bob was too busy on your show to do our show. Yeah. Could have been that. Yes. It also could have been like in Starfleet, we have different color shoulders for different, you know, specialties. So maybe they're different, that's the Bajoran version of the command and security and tactical and things like that. Maybe, I don't know. But they do take aim at them down below. They get ready to fire. But they,

then they recognize Lenaris Holam. Yeah. And they remember him as a good guy. And you see Shakar real nice shot of his finger by the trigger and up real tight into his eyes. He can't do it, though. He can't pull the trigger. So they surrender.

They walk down, put their guns down, and Kira and Shakar walk down. I don't think they surrender. They walk down to negotiate. Yeah. Yeah. They walk down to negotiate. negotiate and kira can't fire either that's the other thing both of them couldn't fire

yeah which makes sense i was getting a little antsy right before they make that decision you're going to fire on your own people and and good good for the writing because you were supposed to make you feel antsy and i'm like good okay that's the way i felt and that's good and now they decided not to do that great well they go down to talk to uh lanaris and they they realize that they have a lot of you know experiences in common and they talk about the old days the resistance days. And as they're bonding and you see them starting to connect,

a nervous trooper in the background shoots up at the other runaway rebels. And you think it's going to start just chaos and everybody's shooting. But instead, Kira, Shakar, Linaris, they all say, stop, stop, stop, nobody shoot. They stop it.

And then they decide to find a way out of this before a civil war starts that they can't stop. Basically, if somebody gets nervous again and fires, they feel like it's just going to explode. They won't be able to stop it. So you see them sort of teaming up here a bit, which is nice.

It is nice. And the right thing to do. The right thing to do. Although, again, the government forces, I understand their affinity to the revolution. because they'd all been in the war together. That makes perfect sense. But at the same time,

there is the greater good that these reclamators could benefit the Joran society as a whole. There's an argument to be made that Kai is slightly right about that. She's right, but my feeling is this.

So you let them have it for a year. You just wait a little extra time to then get the reclimate and then reclaim the soil in recant the... It's just a little extra time. Garrett, Garrett, you're absolutely right. But the argument can be made just the opposite as well. You guys can just wait a year

until we get the soil reclimated in the more agricultural area and then we'll give it back to you. The argument is valid on both sides. On both sides, yes. It is. It is. It is. But they'd already been waiting three years to even get them.

So I feel like there's more claim to them with Chachar. See, here we're having a discussion. We are having the discussion, right? We could argue both. They could sit down and just have a negotiation. And that's what they should have had. Yeah. And unfortunately, Wyn screwed that by sending the troops.

That's right. Yes, okay, okay. That's right. We are now in Wynne's office. And guess what? Linaris is walking in with both Kira and Chikar. Wynn thinks that Linares has taken them prisoner. I have to ask Robbie and Garrett, you both.

So the receptionist that we don't see says Linar is here. Yeah, Linar's. Why is he the third person to walk in? Wouldn't he, wouldn't, I mean, he's the shortest. Well, I don't know if he's shorter than the knob, but shouldn't he have walked in first? Why are they coming in first and him following? Because usually if you have prisoners, they go ahead of you.

They're not behind you, right? It's like, move on, guys, and the muscle was behind. That's what I start to. I thought they were prisoners coming in, you know, hands up or whatever. And they're being pushed into the room. All right. Thank you. I bought that.

I bought that. That makes sense. Okay. I did buy that. Well, Wynn finds out very quickly that they are not prisoners and that Chikar is there to enter the election. What election? Yeah, I know. The one that we didn't know about.

until now. Lanars also says the military is given its full support behind Shakar that they've talked to a lot of them so she doesn't have the military and Kira even gets involved in here and she says you know the truth will be public of what you

tried to do that you push this almost to the brink of a civil war and you did it over just a couple of you know some farm equipment basically Kira finishes with your days in this office are numbered so if I were you I'd start packing right now and win is not happy no he's been outplayed in the mental game of chess yeah and again to the

you know the theocrat story or the fascist story of it all like when you see the two sides that we're sort of being manipulated come together and go wait a minute we're being manipulated by the people upstairs yeah let's get together it's it's the way that those fascist regime are overthrown and stopped when people that maybe have differences but when they get together and talk you know they can stand up to the power so I think that's a good lesson yeah I agree to all of that I wish somebody had stood up with wit fascists have their allies as well she was on her own the whole time at the beginning of the episode we're told by Odo I think that um you know she's adored because she made peace with the Kardashians well what happened to that adoration

Yeah. Even if it's, if it's, if it's reasoned away, which obviously that's what Cura is saying here, there should still be some people who say, no, she's our hero because she got this. Right. That was laid in the forefront of the episode. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we go to Quarks next.

O'Brien is testing his arm with a dart game. He throws a dart and it lands almost on the edge of the dart board. That's his worst throw ever. ever this entire episode yeah uh but i like his attitude in this he's like you know what the i'm out of the zone but it's all right because it felt really good while it lasted better than any sport you know experience i'd ever had in my life yeah i think he says i played a lot of sports but nothing ever felt like this which i thought was nice yeah everybody can relate to those moments where you've been in the zone we've all had an experience where you're just like oh my god i'm

on stage you have it before you have it before one night and go, I don't know where I was. I was just on stage. I can't remember anything that happened. And that's when you're in the zone. You don't remember anything. It goes through and it just everything flows. You're with the flow right there.

Yeah. It's amazing. Such an amazing feeling. Yeah, so he decides to go kayaking instead. And then Bashir at the end of the scene throws a bullseye or throws a dart. It's a bull's eye. And Bashir is just shocked. It's like, what's going on here?

Cork's mind is just just spinning like, welcome to the zone, he says. Yeah, because obviously he lost a lot of money on the 15 to 1. He did. So he wants to make that back with a new racehorse. Yeah. Okay. So I have a question.

So we've seen O'Brien hit the bullseye. We've seen him hit outside of the bullseye. Yeah. How do they do that? How do you do it that you can shoot it? I wasn't paying attention to the edit, but honestly, if you're on a tight shot of someone in motion throwing it and then you let it exit that frame, it just has to exit that frame and then you cut to it's already there wherever you want it. Well, I'm quite sure we saw it go in. We saw it into the go in.

So I agree with what you're saying, but Garrett is right. We saw it go in. It wasn't just sticking there. Somebody has to throw it, even if it's only four inches of. away from the dart board, somebody has to do it with enough. Or is it a CGI DART? Is it a VizEFex CGI DART? I doubt there was a CGIB back then that would have been way expensive. Okay. But what they could have done is just the VizEFex could have said lock it off on the board, put it where you want it.

Yeah. Roll for five seconds on that. Take it out. Yeah. Roll for five seconds on that. And then they will just take it and track it back four or five inches and have it. So they'll cut it out. They'll blow it up

and Photoshop around the dart So they just have a clean shot of a dart And then they will just move it Through the, you know, to give it some motion Huh On film Okay, so it's not somebody standing there physically like Oh, that wasn't the middle.

Okay, that's not the middle. It's not so that. That's my question. That's exactly right, Garrett. That's my question. All right. I don't think so, but they could have done that. Huh.

They could have had somebody standing, you know, 10 inches away and just like, keep going until that thing goes in. And even at 10 inches, which is about as far as my hand is from my camera, I think maybe about there, you have to throw it with enough oomph so that it's crazy. That'll stick. Yeah. You know what else they could have done, Armin?

They could have hired a dart champion to do the throwing off camera. Yes. And then it wouldn't have been the props guys who don't know how to throw. It would have been someone who from 10 inches could do. just about anything. Yeah, yeah. There's a few ways you could do it. It just depends on, yeah, the choice.

Right. Quark is going to start betting on Bashir. Now I'm going to nitpick just as slightly. Yeah. So is that the same dark board that O'Brien and Bashir were trying to steal in the last episode? But he got back or they never got it. They never got it. They couldn't break through Rom's lock, his super lock.

Yes. Okay. All right, we go to Kira's quarters next. and Cisco and Kira walking in. And my first question is, what's in Kira's duffel bag that we've never seen that she wore the same clothes

for two and a half weeks? Well, I have your answer. Clearly, Robbie. There are multiple of the same clothes and the exact same outfit that she wore and that's why she looked so pristine. We saw her running down the hills and up hills. Without the duffel bag.

Without a duffel bag. Where was that duffel bag? She gave it to Lupa Zah. Lupiza was holding it. Yeah. Yeah, someone else. But it's spotless. No matter how many changes, it's spotless.

The duffel bag just felt like, wait a minute, when did she come back and realize she had to pack a duffel bag to go on the run? Yeah. Didn't that all happen too quickly? Yeah. I don't know. The duffel bag, I get why they put it in this scene, but it didn't match anything, the timeline that came before. Right. Well, Kira tells Cisco that Shikar's popularity is grown by the minute.

He is just exploding with popularity. Wynn even gave up on her campaign. She's thrown her support to him. So, yeah. Chakar is going to be a big political star. Yeah. Cisco leaves, and we see Kira go over to her little lamp, the memorial lamp, and she blows out the flame.

Does that mean she no longer mourns for Bariot? It's over? That's what I felt. I felt like, okay, I'm complete with this. I'm done with this part. in my life. Right. The car is kind of hot. That's what I was thinking. Yes, especially that life. Especially me from earlier. Made you think, I don't need Bariol's memory any longer. I'm done. Okay. And let's talk about that flame. That flame has been burning for three weeks.

I'm sorry. I'm Jewish. I know the miracle of Hanukkah, but that's only eight days. This is three weeks. Three weeks. Yes. The flame. And this acclamation for Shkar is how. happened over the course of two, three days? Maybe four days. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Well, there you go. That's the end. Beryl's Flame is out. The lesson that I got from this is that the right thing will happen when true motives and facts are revealed and shared. So, like, once the rebels and the security guys kind of got together and started talking to each other about their situation, the reality of their situation, rather than being manipulated by people wanting power, again, it came back to a political story for me. The happy ending happened because people had the information. They got the truth out to the voters.

You know, this is not a trustworthy person to vote for Kai Wyn. Right thing will happen when truth and reality is revealed to everybody. That's my lesson. Okay. My theme is, the undertaking of a new action brings new strength. Or one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. Lenar primarily is who I'm thinking of here and Kira for that matter. These are unjust laws or actions by the government.

and you have a moral responsibility to stand up and say, stop this. Yeah, a lot of times, you know, when we talk about lessons, these are lessons for people to live a better life. But I felt like this, to me, it was more the lesson for people that are nation-building and that there is a potential danger of when there is no separation of church and state. That separation of powers is very, very important to prevent dictatorship, in essence. Yes, that's what I was. Which is what Wynn was trying to do.

Exactly. trying to move all the pieces like some toy of her. Yes, correct. All these people's lives and giving her. And her ultimate goal was, in my opinion, more power. Yes. Even though she had a very strong argument for the greater good, but she didn't make that argument.

She tried to use, you know, gamesmanship and political gamesmanship. She wanted absolute power. She wanted power over everything, every department. You know, I have to disagree with that, guys. Okay, really? You still think it's more about general in the specific thing you're saying? I understand that she's ambitious. I know Kai Wyn is ambitious, absolutely.

But what she might have been doing is trying to get Bejor on the cosmic map of trade. And that's a good thing for the planet. That's a good thing for her people. It's just that we think of her as this Wicked Witch of the North, although east or westwardishwoman. And that's because of how my good friend Lulu played it. If she had been, if it had been another actress playing with other choices, with the same lines, I don't think we'd be having this discussion.

But I also think the history of Kai Wyn, the other actions that she's taken, have created a sense of character about her and what her motives. Right. And if I make counter that argument, Quark is a cheat when we first meet him. He's a manipulator. He deals in the black market.

But at times, at times he can do heroic things. And that's all I'm asking for. Yeah. More than one color. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense.

Our Patreon Paul winner for lesson or theme of this episode is submitted by Sherry Kay. And that would be one of the prices of giving people freedom of choices that sometimes they make the wrong choice, which is Odo's line. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you again to Armin for joining us for this recap. And for all of you tuning in, please join us next time when we will be recapping and discussing the episode Fasits with Terry. And for all of our Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your book. bonus material? We're going to be able to be.