The Delta Flyers - Starship Down

Episode Date: July 8, 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, Starship Down, is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, and Terry FarrellStarship Down: While in the Gamma Quadrant for trade talks with the Karemma, the Defiant is attacked by Jem’Hadar warships and chased into a planet’s inhospitable atmosphere. We would like to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Production Managers, Megan Elise and 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, Sandra Stengel, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Alex Mednis, Holly Schmitt, Roxane Ray, Tim Neumark, Ian Ramsey, Feroza Mehta, Jonathan Brooks, Matt Norris, Izzy Jaffer, Francesca Garibaldi, Thomas Irvin, Jonathan Capps, Chris Garis, Sean T, & Cindy WoodfordTom Paynter, Andrew Duncan,Our 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, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Elizabeth Stanton, Tim Beach, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, David Wei Liu, 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, 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, Greg Kenzo Wickstrom, Lauren Rivers, Jennifer B, Dean Chew, Robert Allen Stiffler, PJ Pick, Preston M, Rebecca Leary,  Karen Galleski, Jan Hanford, Katelynn Burmark, Timothy McMichens, Dawn Colleen Smith, Cassandra Girard, Robby Hill, Andrea Wilson, Slacktwaddle, Willow Whitcomb, Mo, Leslie Ford, Joshua Shields, Jim Poesl, Daniel Chu, Scott Bowling, Ed Jarot, James Vanhaerent, Nick Cook-West, Shawn Battershall, Natalie Swain, Brian Heckathorne, Mark Johnson, Nelson Silveira, & Ming XieThank 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, 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 hosts for today are my fellow Trek actors, Armand Chimerman, Robert Duncan McNeil, and myself, Garrett Wong, for the complete and exciting, wonderful, and amazing version of this podcast, please check out patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers and sign up to become a patron today. I'm very glad to be here today. I'm very glad to be here. This is a very good episode. I'm very glad to be discussing it. Oh, good, good. I like your beard. No, thank you. Thank you. By the next time you see me, it'll be gone. What is the longest you've ever grown your beard?

I've had it for years. This part was there forever. Yes, but in terms of like, I mean, have you ever grown like a... Oh, how far down? Yeah, like this is probably as far as it gets. That's it. Although my good friend Harry Groner has it down to here now, which is really quite amazing. Oh, my God. Like a Dan Haggerty beard, right?

Oh, my goodness. I wanted to grow my, like 10 years ago, I was on a quest to see how long I could grow my beard. and I tried for a couple of years. I really grew it out long. But it gets to a certain point. Mine will get longer than yours, but it just starts turning back on itself constantly. So the hair people in the trailer on the show I was doing,

it gave me a tiny flat iron. It looked like a, it was like a, for a Barbie? Yes. But it was a real flat iron, and she gave me some oil to put it. She said, put the oil in it. it and then flat iron it out and it'll stretch out, which it did, but I just could not spend my time flat ironed. Yeah, doing that. That tiny flat iron story just reminds me of, have you seen certain podcasters? And sometimes you'll see an athlete. They'll be interviewing somebody

and they're holding a tiny, it's a tiny little microphone. Yeah, a tiny microphone if they're holding up to the person's mouth. It's very funny. It's very trendy right now. Yeah, we did it for all the resident alien premiere stuff. You guys had the tiny mic too? We had the tiny mic. Oh, that's cute okay that's very cute we do have a couple of birthdays we do we have jonathan caps on july 8th happy birthday jonathan happy birthday jonathan happy birthday jonathan and also we have mark johnson on july 11th uh another cancer uh astrological sign happy birthday to mark happy birthday mark happy birthday mark Johnson. Okay, here's my synopsis for Starship Down, in a limerick poetic form. Quark's greed may backfire

once and for all. The Gem-Hadar arrive could be our hero's downfall. They battle inside a gas giant. Is it the end of the defiant? Then Cisco takes Kira to watch some baseball. Very nice. I love to find in giant rhyme. That's very nice. Oh, nice. How about a haiku? Sure, here we go. My haiku for Starship Down. Trade issues arise. Blind skirmish with Gem Hadar. Bashir cuddles Dax. Yes, that was memorable.

Yes. It was very memorable. And thank you for not blaming it on me, as Robbie did in his life. I did not. I did not. I give you credit later, sir. It's not really Quark's fault that the Gem Hadar arrived, but he did almost screw up a whole, you know, trade opportunity with the Gamma Quadrant. Yeah. But it worked out.

He taught, he taught, what's his name a lesson? Exactly. And we went on to another episode after that. Yeah. There's a line in here. You're talking about Hanuk, right? At some point, Armin, Quark says, like, he's talking about Hanuk, and then he says, I, after, there's, he says some vowel afterwards,

and it sounds a lot like Hanukkah when it was spoken. And I just, I did a double take with the screen. I go, did Armin just say Hanukah? But it was not, it was just the way that the sentence was, you know. That's funny. Yeah. You could name an alien Hanukkah. An alien?

That'd be a great alien man. You know, in romance languages, if you put an A at the end of a masculine noun, it turns it feminine. So the daughter of Hanuk could be Hanukah. Ah. Let's just say it is. I'm going to go with that. He's got a daughter. And her name is Hanukkah.

So would Hanukkah's daughter be Hanukkah-ah? Like that, would you just keep adding A's? Yeah. No, no, no, no. one a is sufficient then it's hawaiian it's a hawaiian name yeah then it's a hawaiian now i should say before we go any further that jamie and i had been friends uh just before we did that we were friends after as well but yeah we were friends and i think that sort of shows up in the in the performance jamie and in fact just to put things in perspective a babe had just come out

when we shot this episode oh and uh i hadn't seen it and if i may tell the story very quickly I hadn't seen it But I knew that Jamie was We all call him Jamie That Jamie had been the lead in it So I assumed he had a big part in it Which he did in Babe And we were talking about memorization

And I said, you know, I don't know how you do that I don't know how you memorize that many lines For every day to do something That's a lot And he in his wonderfully sarcastic, ironic way said to me, very highfalutin He said, well you know, Armand, I never went up ever in the movie. I never said the line wrong. I never went up. And I was absolutely flabber-back

gasted by that until I saw the movie and saw the only thing he ever said was good babe or bad babe. It was all babe. It was all babe. That's funny. I want to hear the etymology. I definitely miss that. Okay, well, you have a little bit more than usual or a little bit less than usual. There weren't any unique words here so i just went for the obvious so starting with star starship down star is from the old english sterora but probably came from the old teutonic sternon so the word star comes from both old english and probably before that old germanic old uh language uh it and the definition of course is any one of the many celestial bodies appearing luminous points in the sky.

A ship is my second one, last word, is from the old English skip, S-C-I-P. The ultimate etymology is uncertain. There are old French references and old Frisian references and Northern Netherlands references and old Spanish references and Middle Dutch references and Italian references and old German references. And of course, the definition is a lot. large sea-going vessel. And by the way, ships are always designated as feminine, as opposed to ask them. I wonder why that happened that way, though. Don't know. It didn't have an A at the end,

so I don't know. Yes, exactly. Didn't have the feminine ending. I wonder if because a lot of seamen back in the day, you know, sailors were male, I would assume, I don't know that's true, but I'm making an assumption. Well, I wouldn't assume that. There probably were women on board but not a lot. Not as, yeah, yeah, the majority were male. And maybe they had to, you know, build a relationship of trust and of, you know, this ship was taking care of them. So making it, referring to it in a feminine way was more of an intimate relationship. That's an excellent surmise.

That's an excellent guess. Okay, this episode was written by David Mack and John J. Ordover, directed by... Who was my boss? Excuse me? John J. Ordover, not on Star Trek. Well, yes, but no. I wrote a Star Trek novel, and John J. Ordover was the editor-in-chief at Pocket Books that supervised my novel. Oh. Interesting. So maybe he was already doing fiction when he pitched this story or was involved. Yeah. He was in charge of all the Star Trek novels that came out at that period of time. It was a long period of time. So, you know, at one point, there was a new Star Trek novel every month or something like that.

Yeah. And he supervised each one of those novels. Wow. So this is a past job that he did, or he's still doing this now? I don't think he's doing it anymore. Oh. It's been a long time since I had anything to do with pocketbooks. But at the time that I was working on Deep Space 9, perhaps right after, but I think at the time I was working, Ordover was in charge of the Star Trek.

Trek pocket books and probably some other science fiction books as well in fact i know that to be true because my other trilogy which wasn't a star trek book uh ord over looked after as well no interesting did you have a lot of interaction with him when he was your boss not so much okay guest stars james cromwell as hanuk he has appeared twice on tng in the episode the hunted and also birthright birthright, excuse me. Not to mention First Contact. Also, Zepham Cochran in First Contact. Also, the pilot episode of Star Trek Enterprise, Broken Bow.

But that was just, I think that was just stock footage that they used from First Contact. They didn't film anything extra for that episode of Enterprise with Mr. Cromwell. Also, he was in the mirror universe version of Zepham Cochran in Enterprise. Cromwell's first and only appearance of DS9 is this episode. He's so good. Yeah. I have a story about James Cromwell, please. I was living in New York, 1983 or four, something like that.

And I had done some commercials, but I hadn't joined SAG yet because it was expensive. And at that point, I'd only done a couple of SAG jobs, one or two. And then I got an episode of The Twilight Zone. So I had to join SAG. I was a must join at that point or something. And Jamie Cromwell was in the episode. episode that I did. And I spent some time, although we didn't have scenes together because I was playing in a different timeline than his story in that episode. But, but I, yeah, he was, I met him in

the trailer, the table read, and he was, he was lovely. I always think very fondly of him. He was really welcoming and kind of looked after me because it was my first time in Los Angeles to do this episode. And yeah, he was really, very nice. I also ended up, riding with the same motors, not motorcycle, the bicycle group. Jamie's a big bicyclist. He loves riding road biking and racing and things like that. And he rode with a group called Lagrange. And I would ride with them sometimes.

And I rode a number of times next to Jamie on the road. We'd go out for a couple hours and do a group ride. Yeah, he's awesome. And my background with Jamie is really quite extensive. Started out perhaps his stepdaughter, Rosie, was an, the production of Macbeth that I directed. And so I saw a lot of Jamie during those rehearsal periods because he was looking after Rosie. And then Jamie and I were both national board members for Screen Actors Guilds, and we took part in a lot of committee work together.

So we interacted a great deal. He's very much a classical actor who went into films and did very well. And I think one of the reasons we don't see more of him on Star Trek is probably his agent said, no, no, no, you're a film actor. We're not putting you in any more TV. Yeah. Yeah, after Babe, that put him on the map for sure. Babe was huge for him and was the beginning of his film career.

Yeah. And I did not know, Robbie, that he was in that Twilight Zone episode with you. Like he was kind of your mentor or he took you under his wing in a way. As an actor, as a young actor. I was from out of town. I didn't, you know, I hadn't really been, I hadn't done anything like that. Like I said, just a couple commercials. Yes.

So look at the analogy. Look at the Trek analogy. You were Ensign Harry Kim. Yes, he was Tom Paris. Yes, he was very kind to me. I love it. Let's talk about the other people in this episode. F.J. Rio, as Enrique Munez, appeared as Enrique Munez in the DS9 episode,

Starship Down. Also, I guess, Hard Time and The Ship. So there's more episodes that he's going to come back in. And I'm glad, very glad for him, because we needed to see more of those kinds of characters, in other words, the lower decks people. Exactly how I put it in my notes. I love that in this episode,

that there was a lot of small roles and people, you know, speaking, not just one line, but having a purpose, you know. That's right, that's really had a story purpose. And we don't see that all the time. No. It's kind of refreshing. He also played Jolag in the Star Trek Voyager episode Repentance, and he was also a vision engineer in the Star Trek Enterprise episode Code Generator.

So he's done quite a bit of trek. Wow. We have Jay Baker playing the role of Stevens and also Sarah Mornell as Carson to round out our cast. Great. And just to put things together, Ms. Morel did a number of episodes of Becker where she must have worked with Terry. Oh, look at that. Oh, wow. Yes.

I love that. So just a quick trivia here. This episode is an adaptation of classic submarine thrillers, if you two didn't already know, such as the 1981 Wolfgang Peterson film Das Boat. Writer David Mack specifically told his writing partner, John J. Ordover, Armin's former boss, that he wanted to sink the defiant,

having seen Das Boat the previous evening. So he was just watching and thought, oh wow this is my idea but the original concept for this episode had the defiant plunging into a sea of an alien planet with the crew attempting to escape before the ship's structural integrity field failed and the ship is crushed underwater that was the original idea so it was sort of like the Poseidon adventure you know with the crew trying to get out but that concept involved a really cool scene of otto diving into the water and seeping into the ship through a damaged part of the hole to lend assistance.

So the shot was supposed to be water's coming in, and all of a sudden you see that golden liquid coming in with the water and then Odo forms inside of the defiance. So that was the huge... Water would have been production nightmare if they had had leaking ships. Exactly. So that is pretty much why they nicks the idea because it was just going to be too expensive to do all these...

extra visual effects shots that they would have to do. But basically, it's a bottle show, despite the guest stars, it all takes place on the ship. Yeah. Yeah, it's all on the ship. That's right. Yeah, that's right. There's no other alien ship.

We never go over to any of the other ships. We don't go onto a planet, so. Right. We do actually return to the station at the end of the episode. So that Renee can have his residual scene. But most of the show is on the Defiant. Nice to see you on The Defiant, too, Armin. It doesn't happen very often.

It doesn't happen very often. Very nice. Well, this episode starts with a captain's log, start 849263.5. Cisco says, at the request of the Karama Commerce Ministry, we've brought the Defiant to a remote. Harder than good, babe. Harder than good, babe. Was that the, the Khammers ministry? Was that what that word?

Karma Commerce Ministry. It's like, I don't know, it's a tongue twister. He says, we've brought. the Defiant to a remote system in the Gamma Quadrant to discuss problems that have surfaced regarding our recent trade agreement. And we cut inside the mess hall of the Defiant. And we meet Hanuk. Yeah. And he's complaining basically about Starfleet fees and taxes to Cisco. Cisco's there. Cork's there. But Hanuk's very upset because of all these additional fees. It's just not, you know, there's no profit. It becomes obvious that Quark has been adding a lot of

unnecessary fees to profit from the situation. And I love your dry, underplayed performance in this scene, Armin. It's very nice. So do I. I actually looked and went, well, that's exactly how I sit at a contract negotiation. Just like that. Well, yes, as much as it was a pleasure to watch Armin act in the scene, it was also a pleasure to watch the facial reactions on Cisco's face.

during the scene as well. Yes, as it dawns on Cisco, he is not amused, and he knows what's going on. He doesn't bust you there, but it's... No. And I'm happy to say the Noferengi ship has been attacked by the Gem Hadar. That's one of his lines. Yeah.

Oh, good. Yes, that's right. Get the no. Yeah, so it ends with a very stern look from Cisco, and we cut up to the bridge, and our very first line is, Our crewman, Carson, a new speaking crew member that we've never met before who says to Wharf

hears the results of the last weapons drill and Warf is having the crew run these weapons tests he's not happy, he's very hard on her he wants better reaction time he says keep practicing and we cut over to Kira and Dax who are chatting. We learned she's fasting for Hamera, I think.

I remembered it rhymed with like, it sounded like Tamara. So like Hamara. Hamara. That doesn't make sense. And I heard it without the age. I heard it as Amara. Amara. Oh, interesting. And is it Hanuk or Hanuk? Like Robbie said. I thought maybe it was a soft aid. I don't know. There's a lot of words in this episode. There's a lot of words.

There's so many hard to remember. Yeah. Just for everyone's information, and you had it as well, I'm quite sure. When we had foreign words and scripts, we had a pronunciation guide in the first page. We're telling us exactly so that we would all say the same way. That's right. That was the theory. It didn't always work. It didn't always work. I mean, listen, listen to Warf say Ferengi. He doesn't say Ferengi. He always says Ferengue. Ferengue. You told us that. That's funny. Well, that's similar to our podcast. We always, we always pronounce words differently. All of us. And it's pretty, it's pretty funny.

So Hanuk to me sounds like a hammock, you know. It does. Yeah. So either way, we can go hammock or Hanuk. Either way you want to do it. But he looks like curtains. What the hell was he wearing? And he had a little receding hairline. Did you see his receding hairline in the middle? I didn't catch that. Yeah, it was a nice little. Yeah, he had a little peak there at the top.

A little peak, a little widow's peak or something else. And, Armand, his wardrobe to you is just curtains? Just curtains. So Bob Blackmun goes up. Bob must have been working hard on your show, but just put him in curtains. I think, Rob, I think Bob was crafting your little velvet number at the time. Yes, that wonderful little tank top that I wouldn't wear. you got to wear.

Yeah, he didn't have time to work on James Cromwell's wardrobe. No, just yours. Okay. We learned Kira's fasting for Hamara, Amara, or Hamara. Whatever it is, she's fasting. Yeah. It's a celebration of a Bajoran festival celebrating the emissaries' arrival and being sent from the prophets. And this is the first I've ever heard of this new.

And the last time. Yeah, probably. We learned Cisco does not want to participate. He doesn't like attention. And while they're talking, suddenly, the censors pick up some Gemhadar warships. So we're off to battle stations. And let us remember that they are in enemy territory.

They are in the Gamma Quadrant. And the Gamma Quadrant pretty much belongs to the founders. The deal was that they should not be dealing with the karma. And here they are dealing quark or no quark. That's what the Federation is doing. Yes. So they're sort of invading other people's terror. Black market, illegal trade, for sure.

They should not be here. That's why Worf is running these. That's why, in my mind, he was so tough on them about these, you know, practice sessions and weapons tests and everything. He wanted to be ready for this. He wanted to be ready. And speaking of being ready, one of my little quibbles about this episode, and there are very few, but this one of them was one of them. Why are they all there? This is a contract negotiation.

I can understand Cisco being there. I can understand Quark being there. I'm not quite sure why Daxon, certainly Bashir, who's running the medical facility on the station? If he's here on this negotiation, everybody but Odo is there. Who's running the station? Yes, exactly.

Yes, that's a valid point. Also, why are they so deep in the Gammaquart? like why don't they let's just meet right inside the gates right inside the wormhole right inside the gate if we got to get out of here like yeah what are you doing can we meet in the foyer the foyer of the gamma quadrant not the deep part of it yeah no that's very funny uh armand that nitpick you know you're asking like why are all these people here uh the writers really really love the fact that they like an ensemble they wanted as many of the main characters possible So they kind of took Robbie McNeil's stance of a great episode is with all the main players involved.

And that works, it works. It just doesn't make a lot of those. It doesn't make any sense. But it's still, but that's just, that was one of the main thrusts of why you see Sony beats. And that's great. And I really do like this episode. So that works gangbusters for me. Right.

But my quibble is. So who's running the stage? Right. Who's running the dang station? Rom. Rom. Rom is running. Rob's running.

And nog. Romanoag. So we go to credits, we come back. They're going to battle stations. The Gemhadar, though, they don't target the defiant. They target the karma, arama. You got it. Karma?

You left the K off of it? You and the Arama? Let's just not even pronounce the first letter of any word that we say. Okay. Okay, Abi. Obie. K. It still works for me.

It's still armin. Yes, it does. It's, it's, no, it's actually, Rumen, Rumen, Ramin, Ramin, Ramin, Ramin, Ramin, Ramin, Ramin, Ramin, Ramin. Okay. Well, Hannick says they're punishing the karma for defying the Dominion, for doing this trade deal that you were just talking about, Armin. And, and Hannock offers to give himself up to save his crew. Very kind. Yeah, very kind.

So we already are setting up his morality a bit as being, you know, yeah, a hero. and noble in some way. Cisco says, no, you don't have to do that. We'll protect them. And the Carma ship heads into this Class J gas giant, very dangerous place to go, fly your ships. Cisco calls O'Brien. He says he's taking the defiant into the gas giant.

And Cisco says, here's a quibble, a big quibble I have. He says, I know the ship wasn't built for it, but I think it can handle it. What? you literally say i know we should do this it's not be doing this it's not it's not going to go well but let's do it anyway one of the leit motifs one of the sub themes i think of this whole show is gambling this is a gamble yeah yeah it really is great point great point well miles says he'll see if can get some more power to structural integrity because the ship was not built for it and off they go

they go inside. It's bumpy. It finally smooths out. Great visual effects shots of them kind of going into this atmosphere, very well done, but I thought by the visual effects department. Excellent, excellent visual effects.

And music. Yes, the music was good in this episode. I was flabbergasted by how much I heard the music in this episode. Hmm. It felt more cinematic than usual. It did. It felt bigger and, yeah. Well, this director.

Alex Singer was a good friend of Kubricks. They went to school together. Really? So I didn't know that. That might be one of the reasons why it's a little bit cinematic. Yeah. Wow. The music really amped it up a great deal.

Sometimes when I thought the acting could be a little bit more frenetic, the music did it for us. Yeah, so the music is Dennis McCarthy for this episode. we alternated with two or three different composers. And I think he did more than anybody. He may even, well, I'm not going to say that because I don't know. I was going to say perhaps he created the theme as well, the show's theme music, but I'm not sure.

Wow. He was born in 1945. He did generations. He did Enterprise. He did Next Gen, Voyager, lots and lots of Star Trek. Yeah, Dennis is, he was a lovely man too. I remember meeting him. And he was always very, very friendly and down to earth.

Yeah. Well, it's interesting that you guys talk about the music being more cinematic, like it's a feature film. Because when they read this script, the writer staff actually talked about, okay, it's a bottle show, but yet this could be a feature film. It's what they actually were saying. Wow. Yeah, there you go. It's also true, Armin, that Dennis McCarthy has composed more hours of music for Star Trek than any other composer.

You know, so few shows did full orchestral recording sessions. Like we did. Like we did. And now almost none do. I think Family Guy, Seth really pushes on Family Guy. And I proudly will say that the finale episode this year of Resident Alien, we're going to record with a live orchestra. Yeah. Congratulations.

Good. Yeah, that was a big deal. Is that your hand? Was that you pushing? That was more Chris's hand. Chris wanted to? Because he came from Family Guy and he knows the value. of a full orchestra.

It really adds so much personality and character. And in this episode, as you said, Armin, it was a character almost. It really was a big part of it. We bump our way into this gas giant and we kind of settle in between two thermal layers, things smooth out a bit. But now we realize our sensors have limited range.

Dax and Kira go to work on it. There's a moment there, which was a little confusing to me. Dax says, I have an idea. She and Kira walk over to a council. They walk back to Cisco a moment later. And Kira says, this is what we did when we were in the resistance. And I thought, whose idea is it? Is it Dax's idea?

Does Dax remember that Kira? Again, tiny little quibble. I went, whose idea is it? Is it Kira's idea or is it Dax's? Or does it even matter when we're? it probably doesn't really matter but the fact that kira specifically says we did this when we were in the resistance seems odd that well maybe dax had an idea well kira was there they tried dax's idea didn't work and then kira said oh what about this excellent excellent point could

have could have happened but yeah it's a little a little confusing in the movie version we would have seen that we would have seen the whole scene we would have seen the whole scene in the movie there is a later moment where there's some weird blocking in my opinion i'll point it out when we get there but where somebody says let me go do something and the camera pans all the way across nobody says anything then the camera pans all the way back yeah i think i remember that they're like why did you go there why didn't or why didn't you stay there and just keep talking it was very it was a little yeah do you think stagey okay so robbie do you think when it went over and came back. Do you think when they went over, they shot another shot that they did not include

of a tighter, of a tighter, you know what I'm saying? Of those people. Okay. I'm just wondering. That would have helped it. That would have helped it not feel so yo-yo-y. Right. But what if the episode was over in time? And they were like, we got to cut something out. And they cut out that one little, you know, that other shot that made that move make sense. Alex, as, as you said, Arm, and Alex was a very well-trained and experienced director. For sure. Schooling and the hours of television he worked on. He was a real solid director.

I loved Alex. I thought it was great. Yeah, we enjoyed working with him. They go to work. Cisco sends Hanuk, Hanuk. Hanuk. Hanuk. Never going to go to.

Hanukah. Hanukah. Remember. He sends Hanuk to wait in the mess hall, which I thought, why are you sending, you're trying to save Hanuk's people like you need this guy's information potentially why are you send him to the mess hall i know he's going to have scenes with quark but it feels like you would want the guy who's from the gamma quadrant on the bridge in case something came up i just thought it was strange to send him away they were in a in a stressful situation and and they didn't want

any extra personnel on the bridge perhaps to get perhaps perhaps because usually if you if you're in a strange place dealing with a species that you're not super familiar with. You want the local knowledge next to you. You want them there. Like Nelix. Yes. You want the people that have the knowledge of the players involved. You want them next to you to say, hey, ask questions or whatever. It seemed odd to me. Just to exile him to the mess hall. What the heck? I would have changed the line to what you said, Armin. Like this is, this could be very dangerous. you know it'll be safer for you down and yeah if we need you if we need you we'll give you a call or something that would have been a better way to send him out than just go wait in the mess hall

yeah strange to me yeah but uh anyway warf says the cloak's not there you know the cloak that the defiant has isn't going to work in this gas giant and the weapons are severely limited in this atmosphere kira offers this is where kira comes back with this sort of echo location plan, this active scanning, to use a probe or something like that. No, what's her plan? I didn't write down the plan. Her plan was to use a tachyon impulse to, like radar, bounce things off, sending off the impulses to get it. Sonar. Sonar. You have to send it out, and then you have to move because they'll pick up what you're doing if you don't keep moving. Yeah. So the technology she's talking about is basically submarine.

warfare during world war two using sonar to detect your your enemies yeah yeah well we go to the mess hole next this is where poor hanuk good looks on a good that was perfect thank you i like your hanuk that you came up with earlier too that's a new one how about hanuky you could go with that one you get nice well hanuk and quark are hanging out the mess hall quark is trying to blame this overcharging on You know, Rahm put these contracts together. Rom didn't understand the language. It's all his fault. But Quark, he knows he's in trouble here.

So he's offering to pay back. I'll pay it back. I'll pay it back with interest. He knows he's in trouble because Hanek says that you'll never be able to do business in the Gamma Quadrant. That's the trouble. Yeah. Yeah. And Hanuk admits in the scene or says in the scene, I know you lied.

I know you cheated. And if you survive this, he's going to make sure you can't do it. ever do business here again. He says, you cheated me, Quark, and you haven't even had this courage to admit it. Yeah. So he's playing this very noble sort of holier than now. Holier than now. Yes. Yes. Just a quick question. How was, I know it was a, it was a pleasure to have Jamie on the set there to work with, but how did Jamie handle all the prosthetic makeup? Never had a problem as far as I could see. Oh, great. If there was any mention, if there was any problem that he had with the making he never mentioned it to me ever no he's a team player we talked

about many things mainly about babe because it had just come out oh wow and so we did we did talk i asked him a lot of questions about the movie and which he was happy to talk about but he never mentioned that i remember any any qualms about wearing the makeup and a wig yeah he's completely he's completely cover and curtains and curtains and curtains his wardrobe but you have talked about or maybe Terry but definitely in the past we have talked about guest stars who have been so uncomfortable

that they have threatened to leave and have left. Sorry, exactly. There have been guest stars that have left the set, left Paramount Studios because of the prosthetic makeup being too much overwhelming

and Jamie had a ton of it so I was just wondering if he was okay. And it sounds like he was. He was as far as I remember. Well next we go back up to the bridge from that business meeting in the mess hall we go back up to the bridge they're using this sonar trick this sensor trick yeah they they find the karma ship but it's below them this is back to

the submarine premise it feels like we're going deeper and deeper into the ocean a bit yeah suddenly a jem had our ship comes in from behind attacks them powers offline there's a lot of big special effects moments in this episode this is You know, the beginnings of that. This is the beginnings of CGI of using, and not practical. So they were used a ton of CGI in this episode. Oh, did they really? Yes.

Wow. It looked great. The Viz effects look great. Powers offline. Dax tells Miles to have someone from engineering meter in Jeffrey's Tube 4. She might be able to reroute the power. So she heads out. Why did she even go reroute power?

That's not a job as the science officer. It's like an engineering. It's a gold uniform job to reroute power. Because she's got to cuddle Bashir later. Okay? This is all trying to get her to cuddle Bashir. Okay. Actually, it's Bashir who cuddles Dax.

Yes, it's true. Yes, yes. Let's be clear about that. They do seem to be enjoying it in the team. They do. They do. Another speaking character we meet in this engine room scene, this is Munez. O'Brien talks to him, sends Munez off to meet.

And Stevens, by the way. It's not just Munez, but we all. We also meet Stevens. Stevens is here, too. Yes, yes. We cut randomly to the mess hall for a reaction shot of Quark and Hanuk. I have to pause before I said. Why don't you just call him Jamie or Gromwell or something?

Yes, Jamie, okay. Armin and Jamie. Armine and Jamie are in the scene. They're in the scene, but it's this super low angle kind of handheld. I don't know what it was. It was very abstract and I thought it was cool. If I may. Yes.

Because our heroes are heroes, it's very rare that they ever show any trepidation or fear. So that particular incident was to show that, whoa, the ship is doing strange things and we need somebody to indicate to the audience that this is an precarious situation. This is bad because Starfleet won't do it. They'll always just act like a hero. Especially O'Brien doesn't do it. I don't think he ever flitches. No, he's very confident. Let the lower deckers figure it out.

We'll be fine. I have a contract. I have a contract. We go back up to the bridge. The Defiant is losing altitude and hull pressure. Cisco calls O'Brien, ask how many atmospheric probes they have. And O'Brien says, too. And he says he wants to put in these quantum torpedo warheads into the probes.

And Maas says, well, we're going to have to remove the sensors. to put it in. I think Cisco says, how long will it take? He says 20 minutes. Cisco answers, you've got 10. Which is kind of a theme in this episode. There's a lot of like, how long is it going to take? I'll give you half that. And rarely does anyone respond to that? I mean, we're going to get to the next scene where they're packing something up and I'm going, really? This looks like they're getting ready for a picnic. Never mind. When we get there, we'll talk about it. But that theme, Robbie, is a theme that's in every trek. It started with TOS, right?

Shatner is always like, Scotty, how long to repair the work? And then, Captain, I'm 30 minutes. You've got 12 like that. It's always been that way. And then Janeway does it. Picard does it. It's just a Star Trek thing. Yes.

Well, they do it a lot in this episode. In this episode, they only have 44 minutes to do it. Exactly. 44. We go to the engine room. And we meet another, this is where Stephen speaks in this next scene. Yeah. Even speaks.

So another new speaking role. I kept making notes. I'm like, wow, they keep coming. Miles tries to comfort this ensign, Stevens, by telling him a story. And you hear Stevens go, you know, you've told us this story before. I know all about it. You don't have to repeat. Repeat, repeat story.

It's almost like they're trying to make up for three seasons of no lower deckers in this one episode. We'll throw them all in there. Quickly. I like it, though. It's great. I liked it a lot. Oh, it's wonderful. This is what we want to see. We'd love seeing this. But again, the telling of the story, I thought they were in the middle of crisis. I've got a story I wanted to tell. I wonder if it just occurred to me, because Miles O'Brien is going to talk to another speaking crew member, Tom Morga in a minute. Yes. Tom got a line. Yeah, Tom got a line. Tom got a line. And they never get stuntmen never get lines. Robbie, I don't think Tom got a,

yes. He didn't get a credit, but he got a line. Right. Yes. But he never got a line on Voyager as far as I recall. I don't think he did. Oh, good for him. Tom Morgan got a line, but it just occurred to me because these writers are not on staff. They were outside writers, right? Yeah, yes, yes.

They don't know all the rules of, no, they cost some money. We can't have that. Well, they needed Tom anyway. Because of what he's going to do in a moment. Tom, by the way, is one of the stunt people on the show. And we all worked with him many times over. So you're going to pay him for being a stunt person, so why not give him a line?

There you go. Yeah, he got injured and died as much as anyone ever did on Star Trek. Yeah, he was Dennis Madlone's number one. Number one, yeah. Right? Yeah. So he tells another speaking crew member, Tom Morga, to go get the dualytic converter. and Tom goes out in the hallway

and boom, a bulkhead blows up lots of steam in the foreground there. And I'm not quite sure whether Tom dies. Yeah, because that steam is obscuring what happens to him. We don't know if he's just, did he get... Incapacitated? Or is he dead? I would think if the bulkhead blew blows in,

that he's dead. He's dead. I would assume that. And one of the things missing, because we've seen so many science fiction pictures. If the bulk had blue and there's atmosphere in the ship and there's no atmosphere out in space, shouldn't he have been sucked out?

Yes. I had that quibble later on too, but... In the feature film version of this, he does get sucked out. You see it. You see the visual effect. But I love his character's name. But he still only has one line.

Janklo. Janklo is his name. That's right. That's right. He says, right, chief. Right chief. Yeah. That's a lot, though.

Usually that's just a not. and you're off and yeah yeah and i will say for those listening that to pay a stunt man is equally as expensive if they speak or don't speak it doesn't cost any more money so um often with stunt with stunt roles you want to cast a stunt actor so that you're not having to double them with a stunt person and let them speak because it's the same price whereas a background actor if they don't speak is paid far less than if they do speak, so.

So, Robbie, is the stunt man's day pay more than the co-star actor with the under five for the day? I would assume it is. I think so, yes. It is higher. Yeah, I think it's higher. If I remember my negotiations

when I sat in the union, that's right. Stunt people get paid more than... They get more. Yeah. I think they, yes, they do. But there's a different overtime time, there's a different time, I think, between the two kinds of roles.

If you're a co-star, you get up to 10 hours. That's right. And then beyond 10, whereas with the stunt person, it's up to eight, I think, and then beyond eight. It's less hours. So you want to wrap your stunt, you want to shoot your stunt person quicker. Yes. Because they're going to start going into overtime, and their overtime is more expensive.

Right. That's why whenever I'm directing or producing and we have stunt actors, we try not to put them at the end of the day and have them sitting around all day waiting because you start getting into overtime and their rates go up very, very quickly. Yeah, you try to stay under budget. There's a lot of accounting that you have to kind of think about when you're putting these roles in there. Well, thank you for fines and taxes.

Exactly, a lot of quark moves going on. I sat on the negotiation. Yes, thank you. Thank you for getting some Ferengi into the SAC contract. We go to the bridge where they react to this big boom. There's a whole breach. Kira says an emergency force field will hold, but not for long, not with this kind of pressure. So Cisco says, get them out of there before you seal it off.

And Sick Bay is being evacuated right next to this force field. And Bashir's helping the injured people. Maybe Tom Morga was one of those injured people. Maybe he didn't have. Maybe. I didn't see him, but maybe. maybe um and they tell bashear to to get out of there and uh you've got to evacuate and uh dax is not quite done in the jeffre's tube and cisco tells dax you've got 30 seconds you've got to they have

to seal this deck you've got to get out of there we go back to the corner basher's helping the crew he sees dax heading for safety but then the force field fails and smoke and poison gas in this is where I was like she would be dead like she if the force field that was holding that atmosphere the gas giant atmosphere if that's what she was breathing yeah she'd be dead but she's not because she's got a cuddle busher and and to add to that the door is open when he's pulling her into the turbo lift and so all the gas that she's just breathed has come into the turbos are not perhaps perhaps they can avoid the gas to most. But

I would think he would be coughing as well. Yes. Now he does do a little Yeah, but she was coughing a lot. Yeah. So at least Terry is playing the fact that she's inhaled a lot of poisonous gas. Yeah. But he goes

Well, he's British. He doesn't want to offend. He's trying to be very polite. It's small quibbles because I really do like this show. Well, one of the critiques of the writers, specifically Renee Escheravaria, was that, you know, the original idea we talked about, it was supposed to be a sea, an alien ocean, yes, and the whole thing about closing bulkheads and closing doors to stop the water from rushing in. So the biggest complaint from Renee was that once you start talking about.

about this is now a gas giant. I mean, this is sort of the influence of this gas giant was the planet Jupiter from our own, solar system, a gas giant, that the tension and the drama is no longer there when you have rushing water coming in, close that portal, close that door compared to gas. You know, it's just, it's not the same. It's not the same. Everyone understands, yeah, we've got to close these doors now to stop, you know, the ship from completely being submerged or sinking.

So that tension that we all as human beings understand because we know what ships are and everything. But then how many of us have been in gas leaks like that where we're like, quick, slam the door before the gas? No one knows that, the feeling or seen that. So the writers and the director might have suggested, I'm totally with you, Garrett, might have suggested that we had more coughing. Oh, yeah.

That if the actors have been told, or in the script, if it had said they cough, they cough, they cough. It's almost like you're drowning. Yeah. Pretend like you're on a submarine, you just inhaled a bunch of water. Right. Because gas is flooding into the defiant. Right.

And, okay, we've sealed it off in the turbo lift, but there's still got to be something that came in with Dax and Bashir when they came in. Yeah. Cisco orders Bashir to seal this door and the smoke is rushing in and Dax is lying on the ground. And he does seal the door, but he jumps inside. where this gas is with Dax, drags her into the turbo lift.

When Cisco says, seal the door, doesn't Bashir say, but Dax is still out there or something like that. And Cisco says, seal it anyway, right? Doesn't he say, like, I don't care about it?

That's an order. That's huge, from what I recall. Okay. Yeah. He plays the hero and he sacrifices his life for his teammate. And then we have a moment,

in a moment of Avery Brooks, you know, thinking about the fact that he's, that he's just killed off one of his oldest and dearest friends. Yeah, he had his hands here and he was sort of rubbing. And I asked Rebecca, I'm like, is that?

She said it's a thing you do with a migraine. When you have a migraine, you rub it out here. Yeah. Interesting. So that may be. So he played it that way. Like he had a migraine. Yeah, I like that choice.

I mean, yes, at least we played that. We played the fact that he has sacrificed. Yeah. And beloved friend Yeah Old man And in fact It wasn't played up a lot

I would have actually Like to have seen a little bit more But Kira says She did it Talking about Dax Yeah She did it So that

Dax sacrificed her life As far as Kira's concerned To preserve The integrity of the ship And other crew members I would have liked To have seen that Just heightened a little bit more

To say And then of course We know that she has survive but the bridge doesn't know that yeah right right yeah that's a great point that's a great point well she's in the turbo lift but she's trying to help her with a med kit or a hypospray we're on the bridge Cisco is very upset kira says she did it power does return so they know that she succeeded in rerouting the power and um o'brien says the quantum torpedo probes are ready they've they've stuck them into the probes and cisco says let's go find the karma so off they go start looking for the karma

into the mess hall next quark is uh in there he says we're gaining altitude and hannock says how can you tell he says i've got the lobes which i love loved and then quark goes into a a lot of description about, you know, flattering the Hanuk with his business sense and he says, you know what? You've got lobes too. It's an old forinky expression. Usually when we say when someone has lobes, we mean that they have a keen business sense. And you just go into thick flattery of his business sense. I'm buttering his curtains. Yes, you're buttering his curtains. Quirk says Starfleet is stupid. They're dumb. They don't know what we know. know they don't have the skills we have and you know what we can make a fortune together

hanuk's very quiet during most of this and then he finally says you are despicable and he leaves i love your reading at the end of this by the way armin because you've got to say a line out loud to yourself which is always difficult to do and i love the way that you read that line i thank you i mean jami and i had been friends for a long time the fact that he said you're despicable You know, like any actor, you try to make it as real as possible for yourself. Yeah. And I went, wow. Aw.

From Janie. Yeah. I like him, and I value his opinion, and he just said, I'm despicable. So that's how you, how an actor's mind works. You take what's on the page and you have an imaginary, you connect it to real life, and hopefully then the right reaction comes out. because you've made that transition. It was great.

I love the end of that scene. His line to you and your line to yourself. It was really well done. But Quarker's desperately trying to get back into the races of the Karama so that he could do his trade deals in the Gamma Garner. And the staging of this scene, you were work in the room, and he was just kind of sitting there. And I liked the blocking and your execution of the blocking.

Yeah, Alex did a good job of moving the actors around so that it wasn't static. Because a lot of this is static. People standing over consoles worried about what's happening. I will say, even though we're not there to the end of the episode yet, Armin, your storyline was my favorite part of this episode. Oh, thank you. I really mean that. It was, I loved all the scenes with you guys. And the story itself was just the heart.

To me, that was almost the heart of the whole episode. Well, if the main theme is about the ship being a. submarine being sunk and trying to get out of this dilemma. I think our story, Lauren, dealt with that war than the other stories. The other stories had purpose. Absolutely. I'm not saying that had action and plot. But we were dealing with a conundrum that had to be fixed, which had to do with the main theme, which was that the ship had been disabled. There are other themes. There are relationship themes here. There's psychological themes that we're dealing with in, as I said before, elite motifs and they're important but but ours had more action to it yeah i agree i liked your

story all your scenes a lot we go back on the bridge kira spots a single jem hidar ship and uh they must have split up the the two jem hidar ships so cisco orders silent running very submarine like and this is where he says uh i don't know but let's make it hard for them shut down all non-essential systems it'll minimize our power signature and this is where The camera? Yes, the camera pans over. Nobody says anything. Then it comes back.

It was the out and back sort of blocking. I thought, no, it seems like you could have done that differently. Maybe there was a lower decker on the bridge that had a line we didn't even know about. That got cut out. Maybe something got cut because it was definitely like, what are we waiting for? We're just watching them walk. Why couldn't they do that from that console? Oh, my God.

It stood out for you when you watched it. It did. It did. That felt like a clunker. the Gemadar suddenly are right behind them they fire there is major damage this time oh my gosh i think there's like beams falling and all kinds of this was a big special effects team deal which i was very grateful for not because they were hurting the defiant but for once yes they're in battle they do suffer injury um that the ship itself is not perfect that you know god forbid

that enterprise should ever really, you know, suffer damage, except when it explodes or whatever, crash lands on the planet. We were in a battle and we had taken hits and we were paying for it. And I really liked that again. And, of course, all the little special effects, the squibs. The sparks and the liquid nitrogen and all that stuff and the beams falling and the debris falling. It was great. And the debris, when they show the damage, it was like, for me, it was reminiscent.

because the same, we have the same damage on our bridge when we get hit. It's always those same kind of tubes that are hanging out. And I started laughing because I started looking at the damage. These tubes are very, they're kind of like HVAC, HVAC looking kind of like, you know, they're plumbing an electrical tube from Home Depot. They're either plastic or some type of foil. And I'm thinking on a starship from 400 years in the future, I don't think they're using these materials.

but still, hey, it worked for us back in the day, yes. It was stuff from the attic. It was not the attic, and the attic just dumped all its stuff. What do you have in the attic? Bring it to set. Bring it to set. Also, you know, like Cisco hits his head very hard in this scene. The stunt doubles took, each of the main characters had a stunt double that took some

really hard hits. I did want to know what was happening for Quark and Hanuk down there. I don't think we saw you guys take any hits down there. no not until later on but yeah uh no i was worried that that's you know if if they had shown us we would have been you know you know yeah because the ship was rocking yeah which sometimes i looked and i thought some of this some of the actors didn't really move yeah some of the shaking was a little off in this episode well you know you're talking about all these injuries that we're getting and it just brings up the point of where are the

seatbelts? Where are the restraint systems? We don't see that in TOS, TNG, Voyager, DS9, Enterprise. Nobody has a darn seatbelt until J.J. Abrams does his version of Star Trek in the feature film world. And all of a sudden, we see these cool little seatbelts that sort of, they unfold, you know, on top of the person. They're all automated and they look great. But my goodness. But then again, we wouldn't have an episode with Cisco in a coma if we didn't. That's right. We go to the engine room. O'Brien thinks everyone is dead. was kind of a sad moment. Engine room to bridge. Bridge, please respond. O'Brien says, save your breath. I don't think anybody's left alive up there.

Very sad. So, yeah, that's a sad moment. But we go back to the bridge. The power is off. There's flashing lights going on around, but not everyone is dead. Cisco is in very bad shape. They do mention that Boyce and Peterson are dead. I don't know if we ever met them, but some lower deckers got killed off camera. Kira stops the bleeding on his head. He's got this very bad head injury. Lovely darkness. I love the darkness that Alex shot. I mean, he had to. It gave it a very painterly quality. It made the faces just shine in the darkness. It was just really quite beautiful to look at it. Yeah, Jonathan West did a great job on lighting this.

Wharf heads off to the engine room from the bridge. Kira stays behind to take care of Cisco. and Wharf says keep him talking, keep him awake. Don't let him go to sleep. And so she starts talking, and I love how she says, it's very important you listen to me because there's going to be a test later. That was a line that stuck out.

Nana is a brilliant actress. I am her biggest fan. That she could have settled the way you said it and would be better. It's as though she just, didn't either recognize or want to make it a gag. Yeah. He hears it.

His response is he slightly smiles. I wish she had just given it a little bit of a comical turn to it. Just the way you just did it. Oh, oh, thank you. Look at that, Robbie. I got a little comedy props. Look at that. Yeah, I did like the writerly intent there, though, to sort of lighten things up.

And Kira's getting very emotional during the rest of this story. You know, she's very vulnerable. which we don't see from that character. It's a great performance. Hers is the performance in this episode. Her's is the one that really counts. Yours was pretty good, too. Well, thank you, but hers is really.

So they're in the Turboliff right now, and Dax is not feeling very good at all. Clearly, she has inhaled some fluorine gas, but this is the scene where we talk about Bashir being a bit of a hero here in terms of not caring about his own life and jumping into Save Dax. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I liked her line when she says, you know, a year ago, if you had done something like this, I would have thought you're just trying to be a hero. And he goes, and now, now that I know you better, I realize it was just a really stupid thing to do. And Terry didn't miss having a little comical spin on it. Yes, she was great. Yeah. Yes. Now that I know you better, you're just stupid. You're just an idiot.

Boys. And now we go to the mess hall back to Quark and Hanuk. And they're talking about business and profit. Quarks are saying, you know, that's what matters in business is profit. And that is business. If you do what you got to do to make money. And Hannock says, no, business should be fair. And logical.

It should be, if it's, you know, if it costs this much to make, this is what you charge. Yes. Customer. Yes. He's like raw materials and labor. And then you factor in transport. and a reasonable profit, and you arrive at a fair price. He's very rigid.

Is that something we would say? He's rigid. Well, Cork says he's boring. And antiseptic. Yes, antiseptic, you're boring. Where's the risk in that? The riskier the road, the greater the profit. I can't remember which one it is, but it's a rule of acquisition.

There you go. Yeah. Well, Hanuk does bring up gambling. He says, you know, gambling is for desperate fools. and so it's another great scene in the storyline a philosophical debate about business which yeah yeah yeah i thought was really well done well acted well written i like this whole story thread honestly that's something that you hear all the time nothing risked nothing gained you know you hear that in our society all well that everybody's risking in this in this episode

cisco knows the ship is not built that's a great connection you made arman because i i just thought it was not good writing but it is on theme he knows the ship is not built for this gas giant and i'm going to risk it anyway it's going to risk it anyway because i because the advantage is to get the karma out of danger yeah so it's a risk it's a risk and you take those risks because for whatever reason because you go by the seat of your pants you go by your gut and he went by his gut he did it i i think it fits in oh it does granted granted i don't think it was the wisest move yes But it does fit in with the rest of the show. Very risky bet.

If you want the biscuit, you got to risk it. Right. I mean, putting the warheads on heat-seeking devices, that's a risk. I mean, he says it could come back and buy this in the butt if it doesn't find something right away. Again, a risk. There's lots of risks taking in this in this. Yes. And I appreciated that a great deal.

But, again, my caveat is, I wish the actors had played a little bit more of the tension of the possibility of failure. Yeah. And Starfleet rarely does. Rarely does. Rarely. There's never any tension. We're going to win this. Yeah.

Always. Well, we go to the engine room. Worf comes in through a Jeffrey's tube. He's found a way to get there safely. He takes control in the engine. But before he takes, sorry, before he takes control. Next in the night. Yeah, I love Colum acting.

It's just extraordinary. Here was again, I went, whoa. He said before in an earlier scene, I think everybody's dead on the bridge. Yeah, you're right. Everybody's dead on the bridge. His friends, his companions, his teammates, his shipmates, all of a sudden, Worf shows up in engineering.

Shouldn't there have been a bigger response? Oh, my God, you're alive. Yeah. Well, he does say, Commander, am I glad to see you? I'm glad to see you. But it wasn't enough. You needed a little bit more, yeah. Yeah, it's like, oh, you're back from your holiday.

I'm glad to see. Yeah. Yeah, we have a little. You're back from break. Yeah, you're right. Yes, it would have been nice to see a more emotional and tense. Yeah, the risk, the stakes of this story. In O'Brien's mind, in the character's mind, on the page anyway, all of his friends have died.

Yeah. They're dead. You think maybe they film this scene about, Commander, I'm glad to see you. They filmed this before the scene where he says, like, I'm afraid they're all dead, you know, I don't know. I don't know. But he had the whole script. He did. He should have seen that.

Yeah. I just wish Alex had said to Cullum, which this never happens. Last time we saw you, you thought they were all dead. Right, right. The stakes are high here. Yeah. Yeah. So I just, yes, exactly, Garrett.

I think this stakes could have been a little higher. I agree. Well, Worf is tough on the engineering crew. As he should be. They're in dangerous situation. Yeah, he asks about it. The helm controls, who configured them, Munez said he did, and he barks at him.

Well, they're not done properly. They're not laid out properly. He's basically tough on them. And they're used to O'Brien being one of the guys. And, you know, and Worf is not. Wharf is coming in, very Starfleet, very, very in command and tough on them, for sure. And if I may, very next generation, I think one of the things that we get a sense of, it's not spelled out, this is the difference in aura, in feeling between the two different shows.

There's, TNGism is despite all the friendship and everything and everything that happens. It's a military situation. Ours is a military situation, too, but not to the extent the TNG is. Yeah. It's a little messier. It's messier. It's messier. If you're talking about the rigidity of Wharf, it's interesting because then the parallel would be

Hanuk. Honok is the rigid, you know, carama, the rigid traitor. Whereas cork is a more loosey-goosey. Let's go with that flow, right? And then now you have the same thing with this analogy, this paragraph. parallel here. Couldn't agree more. And that is the arc of the story between Hannock and Quark is that Hannock

becomes more Lucy Goosey. That's right. Later on. And also, Worf becomes more Lucy Goosey as well. To the extent that Worf can become Lucy Goosey. As much as Wharf can be Lucy Goosey, it's just one, like maybe one inch towards Lucy Goosey that he goes. Yeah.

Okay. We go back to the bridge. Kira's trying really hard talking to to Cisco here, but she's talking about work. She's talking about shifts, you know, maybe we should give them more flexibility. I mean, what do you think? Every, you know, every shift should be, you know, longer, whatever.

Our breaks should be longer. And then she realizes, you know, I'm supposed to keep you awake and I'll bore you to tears. I thought she's panicking. And I thought, no, no, I did a great job here. Yes, she did. Yeah. And he says, tell me a story at the end of the scene. And she's very excited about that.

And she asked, do you know the one about the three brothers that go to Jukala? And he says, no. And she starts her story here. So off of her starting the story, we get to the engine room. They pick up the torpedoes that are headed towards them. They dodge the first torpedo, but the second one hits. But when the second one hits, there's no explosion, which is very strange. Very strange.

We cut to the mess hall. And there it is, sticking into the mess hole. through the bulkhead, the unexploded torpedo head, steaming and glowing. It's a glow stick torpedo. Yes, it did look like a giant glow stick torpedo. It just came right through, yeah. Yeah. And because it came right through, one would assume there would be a little leak somewhere.

We would assume. No, no. Armand, it's a perfect seal. Anytime a torpedo like that comes through, it's a perfect seal. Yeah. Well, Hanuk wants to leave. He's like, let's get out of here. I suggest we leave immediately. But Quark is very brave in this scene. I love this. I love this sort of turn from the guy who got caught cheating and, you know, is trying to find a way out of his situation. He becomes the hero. Well, he's saving his own skin. Yes, he is. He is. And often heroes do that. They do it either to protect themselves or to protect their buddies. So the inadvertent hero is what cork is.

If we don't do this, it'll explode and we'll all die. So let's do it. And Hannick's got a good point. Maybe we should wait for someone else. Yeah, we should wait for an engineer. We should wait for a military expert. We are not that. But if we leave and it explodes, yeah, they take the initiative.

Yeah, Quark definitely takes the initiative. And I love the little detail where you take your jacket off to get to. work. I know it's small, but to me that was like, wow, I like seeing Quark getting his hands dirty and something about that. We don't do that on Star Trek very often. We don't roll up our sleeves or, you know. Unless you're O'Brien. I can pretty much guess that was me and not the script. I don't think this script told me to take the track of it. I think I just just. Well, good choice. Yeah. I thought that was great. In the engine room, they've located the general location of this torpedo somewhere in this area.

Wharf barks out orders to Stevens. Stephen says the generators are already at their limits. And Worf says, do it, you know, do what I'm telling you to do, or I'll find someone else who can. So he's still, yeah, who else? Miles, maybe, I don't know. Janklow, Janklow, Tom Morgan is going to help you. Yes.

Yeah, so he's very tough. still being tough and that's when o'brien says hey can i talk to you for a second and o'brien basically says i think you should ease up on them let them be engineers let them do what they do yeah like they're not starfleet they're not warriors they're not prepared you know let them do what they do and wharf sort of reluctantly says i'll consider it in a sense they're nerds yeah uh in a good sense a very good sense they're not military they're just mathematicians, they're engineers. They're really fascinated by how everything works.

Sort of, if we might say, nerdy behavior. And I like that. I like the fact that we have nerds undefined. And they can easily be crushed and they can easily be exalted. I think O'Brien stepping in here to give some advice is a really smart move and I think necessary. Like they're not going to solve this problem the way you're doing it, Wharf. You're not going to get the best out of them.

You're not going to get the solutions that if you support them and encourage them, you're going to get the best solutions. Robbie, that reminds me of the Voyager episode, where Tuvac was so tough on the trainees and everything. Oh, yeah. He'd elucin his way of teaching them, basically. Yeah. We go to the turbolift with Dax and Bashir. I love this overhead shot, a great angle from Alex Singer, looking down on them.

They're freezing. It's getting colder and colder in here. they decide to cuddle. This is where Bashir shares his fantasy of how he always imagined that they went off on some runabout mission together and something goes wrong and they end up drifting for days

and they could be alone together. So he goes to this very explicit fantasy that he must have truly thought about more than once. Do you think he's doing that because he feels like they're going to die and that he has nothing to lose and just tell her what his fantasy was? I wish Sid had played it that way.

Ah, that would have been a stronger choice, eh? Yeah. Yeah, it felt a little like, and maybe because I've seen photos of where these characters are going down the road. And I know who they end up with. This felt like a complete red herring. Like this is. McGuffin. A McGuffin, yes.

There's nothing there. This is not going anywhere. The actors investing in this. in any kind of way. It just doesn't seem worth it. With all due respect to my good friends, I just didn't see much chemistry in these scenes. No. It would have been better if they had played it as like awkward friends, you know? Like, it's funny. Rebecca and I just watched the movie, Her, last night with Joaquin Phoenix, where he falls in love with the AI, yeah, the AI phone thing.

Did you guys like it? I love, I've seen it before. She'd never seen it. So we watched it. But Amy Adams plays his best friend in that. And there was such great chemistry where you knew this isn't a romance. We're not toying with, oh, is he going to fall in love with Amy Adams? They're just friends. They're really good friends. And there was an authenticity of that that I think would have played better that, that tone and that sort of note in the scene.

Rather than it seems a bit confusing to me. Maybe the writers didn't know where the relationship was. going just yet. Oh, that's valid. Maybe. Yeah. Anyway, they cuddle up very close and

it felt like a rom-com scene to me. It felt like the writers had sort of written this rom-com scene and I think because I knew A, that it's not going to go anywhere because I've seen photos of where they do go and B, I agree with the arm and I just didn't think they had great chemistry. It didn't work great for me.

Okay. But I like the overhead shot. Alex did a good job up top. Why are they cold? I'm genuinely asking. Why were they cold? Bashir says these walls are not well insulated and it's going to get colder. Maybe because

if they're not well insured, how do they keep the gas out? Yeah. They have no power. The whole ship is powerless, so they can't. But nobody else is freezing. No. Nobody else is freezing. Just this. Just this turbo lift. Yeah. Yeah. It's a little strange that, yeah, that, that, that, that climate thing wasn't played for the whole ship. It would have been smarter to play that everywhere.

Or there was paranormal activity where there are often cold spots because of ghosts. There were ghosts in the gas giant. In the, no, in the turbo lift, there were ghosts. Or, or because the, and I'm just making this up as I go, because that that section has just been blown away. outside the turbo lift, so we've got space, you know, meters away from them. There you go. And that's, you know. Right outside the elevator door.

Right outside the elevator door. And therefore, it's getting very cold. That would make sense. That's plausible. Yes. Yeah. But it was a little inconsistency with the other parts of the ship that this part is the only part that's.

Yeah, I've just taken off my jacket because I'm getting a little warm. Exactly. Exactly. We go back to the engine room, and it appears that Wharf has taken O'Brien's advice. He asks the engineers for some help. He encourages them to solve this problem. He needs something else. He needs another weapon of some kind besides the probes.

And they start getting creative because he gives it, he hands them the problem and gives them the freedom and the encouragement. And they get creative. They figure it out. I love the energy of this lower-dex moment between them. and a nice moment where Miles sort of clocks all this and smiles it was nice yeah

their energy is very nerdy it's just delicious yes it is delicious yeah it's a nerd brainstorming session yeah it's great and the two actors did a phenomenally good job they did I agree they did they were very comfortable back on the bridge

Kira's telling still telling the story of the three brothers and Cisco's dying and his eyes are rolling back in his head, which just made me very uncomfortable. I felt like it may be, you know, physically what might happen. But to me, I was just like, don't cut to that shot, please. I'm very uncomfortable. Wow.

And I was just the opposite. I really liked it. Oh, you did? I did like him, yeah. I think partially because maybe because Kira wasn't react. I feel like if that's how he looks right now, you're wasting your brain. breath on this story like stop talking and figure out something to do about it maybe that's was it was the inconsistency of her action with his action okay to me but she does eventually get scared um she gives

him the stimulant she does bring up the emissary angle on all of this that you know he's the emissary and uh and she decides to pray she gives him the stimulant decides to pray in bejorin and that never happens in Star Trek. Yes. We have never seen a character pray. Right. Because Except in a ceremony or something like that. Yeah. In the midst of the battle, it's always let's go to science, not let's go to religion, right? Or go to heroics. You're absolutely right. But never to say, I'm going to pray now. Pray for you? No. Yeah. That's really, thank you, Ira. That's a new twist and a lovely one. Yeah. And right, it tracks with the whole premise of your show.

Spirituality, kind of the unknown, you know, this wormhole and all the unknown beyond it, it tracks. And it seems that, I mean, from what happens, I read or Star Trek is saying, praying might help because he gets better. It might help. She did give him a stimulant, though. So we don't know if it was the stimulant or the prayer, but yes, something worked here. I'm going to go with the combination of the two.

Yeah, that's probably right. Yes. All right. We go to the engine room. Weapons ready. They don't see anything on scans. Worf says the GemHadar are definitely there somewhere, though. And yep, just as he says that, one of the GemHadar ships comes through some clouds.

Right behind are our heroes, the Defiant? I think it comes out of the clouds, or they see it on Sonar, but they definitely pick up a GemHadar ship. And then it cuts away. We don't know what's going to happen. We cut over to the mess hall. They're trying to defuse the bomb. There's quark. There's Hanuk.

Connick wearing curtains. Yes. And we discover in this scene as they're trying to diffuse the bomb that Hanuk sold this torpedo to the Gem Hadar. Wait a minute. Quark's like, oh, really? I thought you were all high and mighty. You sold them a substandard product.

And they start to laugh. I love this laugh between the two of you. You're clearly friends in real life because the laughter was, you were enjoying this opportunity. Yeah. Let loose a little bit. Yeah, a little gallows laughter. They know they could easily die.

They've got to pull one of these two diodes. And so Quark says to Hanuk, you know, you decide. And Hanuk is just thinking way too hard. He's overthinking this. Quark finally just impulsively grabs one. Pulls it out. And he got lucky. Took a risk.

I liked your pacing, Armand, your decision of how to verbalize this dialogue with your blocking of pulling it out, is very good, sir. Again, my favorite storyline. I love these scenes. I do. I love them. Yeah, they're great. They're alive, and they talk about how exciting that was, taking a risk.

The bigger the risk, the bigger the win, Quirk says. And he says, stay in business with me. This is a risk. I know it's a risk, but he turns it. He's very clever, Quirk. He is. But I thought that they were, you know, they're becoming friends now. I thought, okay, Jamie will be here.

multiple episodes as Hanuk or Hamick or Hanuk He's gonna be here, but no I'm kind of bummed to be He never comes back Does he doesn't? Does he? Babe took off Babe definitely took off. Babe left the set That was a phenomenon that movie

It was a total phenomenon Yeah Yeah who knew For you youngsters listening out there If you've never seen Babe, please go watch it And imagine the mid-late 90s the biggest phenomenon in the world was this movie. Huge.

We're back on the bridge. Kira's continuing to pray and then Sisko wakes up. He asks what happened to the three brothers and she tells him they gave all the money away and went back to the farm where they belonged. And he's very

happy with the ending. I love that. I have on occasion been anesthetized for surgery or something like that. And there is a period of time when you wake up from the anesthesia but your eyes are still closed you haven't said a thing you're in a sort of a comatose state but you're aware you're aware of what the nurses are doing around you with the doctors you you hear things and and you're picking that all up and eventually you know you get your faculties back and you can speak and you can open your eyes but but there is that time and tell me what happened

is indicative of that time when you're just what is that and that's what you were you focused your attention on as you're waking up from the comatose state I love that so Avery did a good job there

I think tracking that you know you believe it it's believable yeah I did well Cisco does wake up and CIR is very happy and he wants to hear another story so she's very happy to tell him another story because this is a whole new side of their relationship you know it's they've always talked work and and they'll kind of articulate

that later we're back in the engine room they see a the ship on sensors they've got something it's the probe is sending the tetraon pulse um not the defiant and we cut to the engine room again and they fire this phaser uh that that was the second weapon that warf asked the engineers to build. They fire this phaser and boom, the crewman high five. They've blown up the GemHadar ship and now they've got to find the karma and get out of here, Milo says. So they destroy the two GemHadar ships. You know, against all odds, they survived in this gas giant and we're able to do it. So that's kind of the end of our action sequence. And before, we go any further just to reiterate

something that everyone, you know, I'm just saying the obvious. One of the great things about Star Trek is how people work together as a team and that's what happened here. Worf got the engineering to work as a team. He was not part of the team at the beginning, but then becomes part

of the team. And working as a team, they work out the problem together and they achieve what they need, but only through teamwork. Well, that's kind of with this with this log, the Defiant Log Supplemental that we hear, we see this montage of the team working together, saving Bashir and Dax, Cisco getting, you know,

treatment from Bashir on the bridge, and even Quarkin and Hanuk, the teamwork of, you know, diffusing this bomb, this torpedo. Like everybody, it took everybody doing their part. to get exactly yeah we cut back onto the space station to quarks honick is playing dabo he's really into it gambling now he is he has drank the kool-aid yeah cork coolade he's into it otto suggests he quit playing while he's ahead but he wants to put it all on triple over and uh rolls everything he's already won on triple over and he wins that cork comments

Wow, you're really catching on. Your reading was great. It's very funny. Great way to end the scene. And we get a residual scene for Renee. And Renee gets a residual scene. I love what Alex did in this section, but also he did it throughout. But this shows it beautifully.

He has Odo bring us over to the bar on Odo's Cross Away. It brings us over to the bar where Morin and Bashir are talking. Morn is basically killing Bashir. with boredom but not you know i'm a little tired of that joke i know i'm really tired of that joke give him some lines or just don't use him but you know they're not going to give them any long i know that i know that so don't do it it just doesn't work it happened once we've gone to that well just too many times yeah well hopefully they don't play it too much more they do well dachs rescues Bashir here and she even says I just rescue you now we're even now we're even which

I like that now we're even yeah we see Stevens come back from engineering one of our lower deckers he shows Worf this repair repair plan starts to explain it but work interrupts him and says you do whatever you think trust your judgment and then Miles asks or no warf asks how long and he says Stephen says 16 hours and then Miles jumps in and says I think you can do it in 12. And O'Brien's comment is, see, you give them a little slack, but you know, you can't take your hands off the reins. So it's all about balance.

Yes. And then our last scene here is in Cisco's office, I should say, where he starts the scene with Kira by saying he thinks they should go to the four-hour shift rotation. So that's what she was talking about when he was. It's like you said, Armin, he was aware that was her idea. He asks, when they finished the business conversation, he asked about the baseball game. He says, hey, when are you off duty? And what are you going to do?

And let's go to a baseball game. And he tosses her a hat that he has handy. And he does mention, bring some hot dogs. I loved her reading hot dogs. What? She doesn't know what they are. Cisco says, Quircle, though. It's nice that he, you know, this whole ending with the game thing,

but it's also important to realize that this is probably the very first time he's invited her. It's a baseball game. And this is his pastime. So they have definitely had some bonding in this episode and character development where now they're going into a different type of relationship where it's more friendly now, you know? Yeah. Precisely. That was the arc of that elite moot.

about the bonding of the two of them beyond being shipmates, but now becoming friends, real genuine friends. And her reaction to getting the cap is just delicious. Yeah, yes. It is. I don't remember her ever beaming that much ever on the show until that moment. She just beams. She just beams.

I wrote down, don't try and control everything. Give people a little bit of freedom. Yeah. Don't be too rigid. It's what Worf learns. It's what, you know, what Quark teaches Hanuk as well. Like, don't be so stuck with all these rules. Like, loosen up a little bit.

Give people a little freedom. Take a chance. Yeah. All right. Armid. To that end, take a chance. I would put it a different way. the value of gambling

the value of gambling take a chance gamble and I would also say actions have consequences the actions that Cisco took had consequences the actions that all of them took Bashir took everybody took

have consequences and you have to live with those consequences but that goes hand in hand I think with the value of gambling that gambling you take a gamble And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But sometimes the riskier of the road, the greater the gain. Yeah, for sure.

All right, my lesson is don't get caught up with the minutiae of life. Let go and go with the flow. Don't micromanage. Do not micromanage. Yeah? Our Patreon Paul winner for the theme slash moral slash lesson of this episode. As submitted by Summerhurst is, working together, we'll get your goal. accomplish faster.

Hmm. Yeah. True. Yes. Very true. Even when people don't have the same work style or approach or technique like Hanuk and Quark, if you work together, you're actually going to accomplish more. Or Wharf and the Engineers.

Or Warf in the Lower Decker's. There you go. Well, thank you, everyone, for tuning into our recap and discussion of this episode, Starship Down. And thank you again to Armin for. helping us out with this one. Thanks, Harmon. Join us next time when we will be recapping and discussing

the only other episode of East Space 9 that I saw before this recap, which is, and everyone knows, the visitor was one, and the other episode is Little Green Men, which is what we will be recapping, discussing with Armin. And I can't wait until we get to talk about this episode, because like I said,

it's the only other episode I saw before doing this recap. All right. I'm excited. So, Armin, we get the pleasure you're in for a treat oh yes yes yes and i can't wait until robbie gets a chance to see this episode it's going to be super cool for all of our patreon patrons please stay tuned for your bonus material and a little bit more time with armin You know,

I'm going to be able to be. So, you know, You know,