The Delta Flyers - Tattoo

Episode Date: October 12, 2020

The Delta Flyers is a weekly Star Trek: Voyager rewatch and recap podcast hosted by Garrett Wang and Robert Duncan McNeill. Each week Garrett and Robert will rewatch an episode of Voyager starting at the very beginning. This week’s episode is Tattoo. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.Tattoo:An away team's encounter with hostile natives reminds Chakotay of when he disappointed his father as a child by not embracing his cultural traditions.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise, and Rebecca Jayne, and our Post Producer Jessey Miller.Additionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co- Executive Producers: Stephanie Baker, Philipp Havrilla, Peter Patch, Kelton Rochelle, Liz Scott, Sarah A Gubbins, Ann Marie Segal, Jason M Okun, Marie Burgoyne, Jason Self, Daniel Adam, Chris Knapp, Michelle Zamanian, Matthew Gravens, Brian Barrow, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, Megan Hurwitt, James Zugg, Mike Gu, Shannyn Bourke, and Holly SmithAnd our Producers: Chris Tribuzio, Jim Guckin, Steph Dawe Holland, James Amey, Katherine Hedrick, Deborah Schander, Eleanor Lamb, Thomas Melfi, Breana Harris, Richard Banaski, Eve England, Father Andrew Kinstetter, Ann Harding, Gay Kleven-Lundstrom, Gregory Kinstetter, Laura Swanson, Máia W, Luz R, Charity Ponton, Josh Johnson, Chloe E, Kathleen Baxter, Katie Johnson, Craig Sweaton, Maggie Moore, Ryan Hammond, Nathanial Moon, Warren Stine, York Lee, Mike Schaible, Kelley Smelser, Dave Grad, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Katherine Puterbaugh, Claire Deans, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Matthew Cutler, Crystal Komenda, Joshua L Phillips, Barbara Beck, Mary O'Neal, Aithne Loeblich, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Heidi Mclellan, Dat Cao, Cody Crockett, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Oliver Campbell, Anna Post, Evette Rowley, Robert Hess, Vikki Williams, Cindy Ring, Nathan Butler, Terry Lee Hammons, Andrei Dunca, James Keel, Daniel Owen, Brian Jordan, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, and Ming Xie Thank you for your support!Our Sponsors:* Check out Mint Mobile: https://mintmobile.com/TDFSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Delta Flyers with Tom and Harry as we journey through episodes of Star Trek Voyager. Your two hosts along this journey are myself, Garrett Wong, and my talented co-host, Mr. Robbie McMeel. Whoa, talented. I give you talented. Oh, Garrett. I don't think I've said that to your face. No, thank you.

no never you've never said I'm talented thank you well there you go I feel like I feel like I'm okay you know I have a self-esteem problem ironically that's probably why I became an actor oh I don't have a lot of self-esteem and and I think I always felt like I was kind of a mediocre act like I wanted to be a great actor but I felt like I was just I was okay I had my moment moments, you know, now and then. I don't know. I think that's one reason I, with directing, I was so driven because I thought, okay, well, you know, I feel like I'm, I'm an okay actor, but maybe I're going to be a

great director, you know, I don't know. Oh, so it's sort of like a do-over for you. Your life do-over, you felt, career-do-over in a way. A little bit, right? Yeah. Well, you certainly have set a very high bar when it comes to, directing, I think. Oh, wow. Thank you.

Yeah, man, because, you know, it's, it's not easy to direct, period. And it's, I think, the most difficult thing for a director is, is connecting with the actors. Yeah. And you have that ability to connect with the actors because you were an actor before. Yeah. But then that being said, there have, there are a lot of actors, there are a lot of directors out there now that used to be actors. But they still, even though they should have a better grip on. on how to deal with actors.

I feel like they don't. They don't know. Sometimes I think actors turn directors can, the danger is you can try to get the actors to do it the way you would act it, which is not always, that's not a good way to go. Yeah, like if someone gives you a line reading, that's probably the worst thing that you can do

is like, hey, to tell the actor, can you say it this way and then you just repeat the line? And that has happened to me on more than one occasion from a director who was also an actor, And it's just, oh, it's so frustrating to hear that because that's sort of the easy way around it, right? I mean, as a director, you should find a more organic way to get your actors to give you what you need instead of saying, say it like this, you know, so. I will admit, I've stooped to line readings occasionally when I'm directing just because I can't find a way to express what I'm trying to say, but I'll ask. I'll say, can I show you where I mean, where, you know, where I hear the emphasis, like where I imagine.

the emphasis might be and they'll, if they give me permission, then I'll say, you know. Right. But that's your last resort, though. My last resort, yeah. That's not your first way to deal with it. You're going to go with that at the last possible resort, which I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that. But if you start, if you lead with that, then I think you're a bad director.

If that's your only way of talking about that, that's not good, you know. And it doesn't bring out great performances because you really want the actors to feel inspired, not robotic, not repeating the robot. other line reading you gave, you want them to be inspired and personally connected so that they're bringing that real magic. That's the best, that's the best episodes of Voyager that I've seen is when, you know, Picardo or you or me or Kate, you feel those moments where someone's really connecting and really inspired. Well, you want to collaborate. You want to feel like you're collaborating, not being told to do something in a certain way, right?

Agreed. Anyway, I just wanted to today just bring up the, I don't know, you watch the Thursday night football game. Probably not. I know you're a big college fan. I'm a college football fan. I'm going to be working tomorrow on Saturday. I'm going to not be able to see my Georgia Bullocks play Auburn tomorrow, which is a big game. That is a big game. I can't believe. Can you record it? I think you need to record it at least. Yeah, I probably should record it. You should record it. Yeah. So I want to talk about Thursday night football last night. That match was between, that game was between the Jets and the Broncos. So it was at MetLife Stadium.

It was a Jets home game, basically. And in garbage time, literally, this is the last like 20 seconds of the game. The Broncos are ahead. There's no way the Jets can, the Broncos have the ball. And so the QB for the Broncos is the backup quarterback. Brett Rippin, his father, Mark Rippin also played in the NFL. and Brett Rippin was doing such a great job, but the Jets defense decided to just throw in these last second,

like, you know, hardcore roughing the passer type of penalties happen. Yeah, and it was like, what are you doing? And then I realized the defensive coordinator, Greg Williams, is the same guy that was the Saints defensive coordinator years ago when there was that bounty gate when they were saying that, oh, Oh, yeah. He is going to, he's been giving out, you know, bonuses if you injure somebody on the, yes, on the other team, which is horrible. You should never have that type of mentality, right?

And then from this game, yeah, I watched it and I thought, oh, my gosh, this is horrible. And the comments afterwards by the commentators, Steve Smith, ex-NFL wide receiver from the Panthers, he started talking about it. And he said that he said, I've played against, you know, Coach Williams before. And the defensive players will say to me, hey, I'm sorry that I hit you so hard afterwards. If I don't take you to the ground and I don't, if I don't look like I'm trying to, you know, take you out, I will get fined. You talk about the bounty gate about him paying, you know, getting people bonuses for hurting people. Reality was, according to this NFL player, was that they were getting fined if they didn't do it. So no, but they weren't giving out extra money.

They were taking money from the players' pockets if they didn't act like Bruce. roots. And I thought, man, how is this guy even still coaching in the NFL? I mean, this is just ridiculous. I mean, you're purposely trying to injure people and take them out of the game, even at the end of the game when you have no chance to win the game. So I was just shocked and just Yeah, that's really sound. Yeah, it's a bummer. Anyway, that's off my chest. Well, at least there's a little bit of football. There's, you know, some things are normal in the fall. It's nice to see some version of football this year. I enjoy football.

Yeah. All right. So this week's episode is tattoo. Yes, it is. I love how every time we have our pre-show talk, Rob is always like, what are we doing this week? I have no. You're not supposed to tell people that this is, this is all. Am I airing dirty laundry?

It's supposed to be fresh anyway. Oh, yeah. Before we start actually recording our show. You know, I always say to Garrett, all right, what, what's the next episode? Where are we again? But that's just a proof to you. You're right. That's honestly, we are just, you're getting everything from the moment we say, what do you remember, to watching it, to our reactions are all fresh.

We don't script any of this. It's all very fresh enough. So we're going to go ahead and rewatch tattoo, and we're going to come back with our recap of that. And for those of you who are our patrons, stay tuned as we play a little game of What Do We Remember? Hey, guys, we are back from the rewatch of Tattoo. Tattoo. What are your thoughts? Wow.

Well, I was, my thoughts are I was really personally connected to this story. I really enjoyed it. My father passed away this year in real life. He passed away March 4th. And so I just full disclosure, this episode for me made me think about that a lot. So Chakotay's journey with his flashbacks to his father and kind of his spirit guide, this eagle or hawk that was flying and sort of. talking to him and trying to protect him and speak to him and just the spirits of our ancestors,

all of those ideas really resonated for me in a big way. And I really appreciated the science fiction sort of spin on it, kind of connecting native people to, yeah, just to sort of a timeless and far away kind of alien race. I don't know, I just, I really enjoyed this episode a lot. I really did. Cool. I like this because this is a Chikote backstory. And, you know, they went into a little bit more detail in comparison to what we've seen in the past when we're talking about Native Americans. Yes. Or at least Chukotay's tribe. So it's much more detailed. In regards to, I didn't do a haiku this week. I did a limerick. It's a limerick. Yes. You made mention last week. You're like, that's so much harder to do. So I said, you know what? I will take a shoo.

shot or a stab. Okay. It is a little harder. There's just more words in it. There is. There is more word. But sometimes that that could be easier to flow with when you have, because if you think about haiku is five syllables, seven syllable, five syllable. That's not many words. No, you've got to be very, very economical with your words there. Yeah. Okay. All right. Rimerick. Yeah, I'm very excited. There we go. Tattoo, the limerick for tattoo. There once was a commander named Chakote, who, relived his memories of a former day. He didn't believe what his father decreed, but meeting the sky spirits has shown him the true way.

Oh, nice. I like it. Yes, thank you so much. Yes, good old limerick. I'm going to throw one out right now. Oh, are you going to do it? Yeah, off the cuff. Chacote went to a planet of rocks.

and now I give up I don't even know where I'm going with that I just started and then that was beautiful I was so excited too I was gonna go and then I was like nope let me just stop right now I got a long way to go

I was like we're at the Olympic diving facility and I was at the top diving board and I did a triple flip off and you said let me show you my dive And then you went up there, you got to the edge, and you did one move, and just stopped. Just stopped. That's right. That's all right.

I just stuck my leg out like that, like whoop, and then back. No, I realized I had a long way to go in that limerick. I was like, I can't do it. That's okay. But I will work on that for next week. Yeah, so we learn a lot about Chikote. We learn what a chamozy is, not to be confused with a coozy, which is the little phone thing. Yes, to keep your beer insulated or your non-alcoholic.

beverage, insulated. Is a kuzzi, is that an international word, like everybody calls it a kuzzi? If you're in Germany or France, you'd say, hey, give me my vino kuzzi, something like that? Or is that just like American? I think it's American. Well, we could ask Papa Kardo. He is Italian American if they say, a vinokuzzi, we could ask him that. Yeah, maybe.

But I think it's specifically American. even though it's an Italian-sounding thing, but then it makes me wonder, was the lead writer on this, that the teleplay was written by Michael Pillar, story by Larry Brody, was Michael Pillar actually sitting there holding a drink with a coozy and thinking, chamoosy, chamoosy, maybe that influenced it. Maybe it did. Maybe it did. But we know that a chamuzi is a blessing to the land, an ancient healing symbol. which is super cool because we see it in the flashback as the tree was cut down

so as a healing symbol to the tree being cut down that Chimuzi is left there and we see it again on the fire pit in the very first scene exactly in the very first scene which may be

remember when we did what do we remember earlier for our patrons you talked a bit about that maybe this was a trip to Lone Pine or something. Or the rocks, maybe they did a lone pine trip without us entirely.

I don't know. Yeah, I don't know where they shot. I felt like they went out into nature a bit. But then as I watched this episode, I realized, by the way, we'll get into it. But a lot of the exterior scenes were shot on stage.

Oh, really? I remember specifically. And this episode, okay. This episode also has a very famous moment with Chocote by himself later on. We'll get to that. We'll get to that. We will get to that.

I do want to say that in the opening scene, it's really good to see, well, not the opening scene, but the scene after we come back from the intro, we see Nancy Howard. We get to see. Yes. Ensign Wildman. Just one scene in this episode. One scene, one very quick scene, getting her checkup regarding her pregnancy. Her pregnancy.

But it's a good scene. It sets up the whole thing about, you know, the doctor not having compassion, a lack of compassion, according to Kess. Kess kind of calls him out on that. The director of this episode is Mr. Alex Singer. He's credited as Alexander Singer, but we called him Alex. Alex Singer. I love.

I don't know. It feels like it is his first in our recap, but I loved Alex Singer. He had done a ton of, he was just an old timer. I just really liked Alex. He was a nice man. I liked his positive energy. I felt like we were in good hands when he was directing. For his age, he could easily have been very jaded and very cynical.

But I would say that wasn't he the oldest director we had of all, you know, of our directors? Yes. So Alex was definitely, you know, up there in age when we first met him. But Robbie's right in that. He was always very positive. Alex Singer is still alive. He's 92 years old.

We should call him. Oh, my goodness. We should call him and say hi to him, for God's sake. Yes. I mean, he's also, just to give people an indication of who he is, he's definitely, he's definitely very energetic, very kind and positive. His background, I think he was raised in New York. He definitely had that New York, that New York accent.

He talked to kind of sound. To me, he sounds like how Stan Lee sounds. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he has that sort of, uh-huh. Old school New York, New York City guy. And Alex was always very honest in terms of if he, if he saw something in us that we were doing as actors that was distracted, that really wasn't true to what our performances should be.

He called us out on it. And I remember once I was filming. It was my coverage. And Alex goes, cut. And he goes, Garrett, I have to talk to you. I'm like, what's going on? There's something that you do with your jaw. I don't know why you're doing this,

but you're clamping down on your jaw and you're making your jaw really tense and it's only happening when you're trying to make a point or you're serious about something. but you don't have to clamp your jaw to make a point about it. You know, so he really called me on on this weird physical thing that I did that I had no idea. I had no idea I did this. And I'm like, holy crap, I do do this jaw clenching thing.

And it really helped me as an actor to realize that you don't have to, like, as an actor, you don't have to resort to physical, physical, facial mugging or anything to sort of emphasize a scene. Like, if you're playing a bad guy, right, you don't have to sit there and, like, furrow your brow. and get really angry and get a scrunched up face and say every line like this. You know, that's not what it's about because in real life, that doesn't happen. You know what I'm saying? I mean, the bad guys are much more subtle than that. It's much more subtle.

And so what I just, I'm so thankful for Alex Singer, at least being able to collaborate and work with Alex Singer was him calling me out and saying, hey, man, don't do that. And in successive times that he came back to, I would still fall back into that thing. And he said, Garrett, the jaw. No, stop it. He would throw that out while we're filming. Alex Singer directed as far back as 1961.

He was a director on a show called a movie called A Cold Wind in August. Oh, my God. He did the series Ripcord in 1961. He directed episodes of Dr. Kildare, follow the sun. Checkmate, Profiles Encourage, a famous TV series. He directed on Lost in Space, one of my favorites. He directed one episode, The Virginian, the original fugitive, Laredo, Jericho, Man from Uncle Hawk Manix, The Monkeys.

He directed six episodes of The Monkeys. Wow. Yeah. He was... So you're reading this, you're reading this resume, and you're pulling his directing credit from 1961, three years before you were born, seven years before I was born. Yeah. This is like he's already, he's already been entrenched in Hollywood before we were even a

That's right. Alex Singer. An embryo. So I'm impressed for sure what he's done. Yeah, he was a good man. He is a good man. He is a good man. Get him on the show.

Let's get Alex on this show. I would love that. Oh, that would be super cool. I could find him through the director's building. DGA. Well, you could do that. I bet I could. I'm going to try to do that. That's your homework. That's your homework. By the way, Nancy Hauer, and I think I've mentioned this before, but Nancy Hauer was, we went to the same school.

She was a little bit behind me. I remember her from school, but we didn't know each other well, but it was so nice to see her to have her on our show. So when she popped up today, I just remembered that. So just to go back to before the credits, before the first act, Chocote has a flashback, and they're by a creek. and young Chakotay is as asking questions and at one point there's a fly flying around and he goes and grabs the fly and I was like I rewind it I'm like wait a minute did he nobody even nobody said anything like nobody went whoa that's cool you caught a fly I was like did that just happen and I rewinded sure enough he was they put in a sound and he was like like you pulled him Mr. Miyagi from karate kid and catches the fly with the chopsticks. Later on they do more biting and he like, you know, he hits him, you know, hits the bugs and he's like,

why are these bugs biting in? And his dad had some comment about it. The bugs were bothering. He didn't. He wasn't in tune with nature or something. But that's, that's right. So that very first scene, by the way, with the creek and everything.

Yeah. That was on stage. That was a set. It was not out. That whole, that whole episode, except for the rocks, the whole episode was built on stage, including that water coming down the creek. I remember, I remember shadowing Alex Singer on this episode, and I was unbelievable that they had built that exterior forest jungle place on stage.

On stage. It was insane. It was so well done. And they lit it. Like when you look at the light outdoors, it's very hard to do that on stage without it feeling. Yeah, to duplicate that. Yeah. Without a looking set like, like it's on a soundstage. So they did a good job. Earlier when you just said, with the exception of the rocks, you were saying rocks plural. But I heard rock. So I immediately thought with the exception of Dwayne Johnson. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. We haven't gone to his. episode yet. No. We will, though. We learn a lot from those flashback sequences filmed on stage. We learned that Chacote was born upside down. So that's... I know. Is that right? What do you call that when you come out the wrong way? I think it's... A breach. Yeah, breach. And breach, baby. Yeah, breach birth. Yeah. They called him contrary. He was contrary. He was born upside down,

it's born upside down, which is, you know, an interesting backstory that we did not know of. Yeah. And I mean, while we're on this backstory of Chakotay, we learn also in another flashback scene that young Chakotay asked Captain Sulu to sponsor him at Starfleet Academy. So now we have the high in with the original series, which I thought was pretty cool. Yeah. Oh, I just want to make reference to the scene where Bologna is in the transporter room and we see my stand-in, John Tempoya, standing next tour. This time wearing clothes and not not. Not with a shirt off.

Shirt off. Twisted Voyager set. Yeah. But that's where I'm usually standing next to, I know. So I thought you're just going to, you're going to substitute my stand-in in place of me. Thank you for the time off, though.

I appreciate it. I'm sure I was happy not to come into work that day. By the way, you walked into sick bay early. on and said, hey, Doc, I'm not feeling so well. Yeah. And then you never talked about it again. No. And he also says, the doctor says, well, see, I'm not complaining about it. And I'm thinking, I didn't really complain. I just made a statement of fact. I'm like,

I'm not feeling that well. I didn't say like, oh, woe is me. So that was, yeah, you're right. We never hear about what it was. Never even hear about what it was. It was just a moment. Just a moment to like trigger the doctor being in sense, super insensitive. Yes. That's what it was. He decides to give himself the 29-hour Lavodian-Labodian flu. I'm going to say Levodian v as in Victor. That's what I heard. At first I thought it was Labodian, and then I heard it again.

I thought it was Levodian. Levodian flu, yeah. 29-hour, he programmed for 29 hours. Yeah, very comedic of the doctor, blowing his nose. I actually would have liked to have seen a little more of this storyline. It was, it was, like I said in the beginning, I loved, I really liked this episode a lot. I loved the ancestors and the father story. It just connected to me.

But I really did enjoy seeing Bob Picardo play superfluish and sick. And I loved, I love, I think there could have been more of that because that would have been a lot of fun. Yeah, that was a great beast storyline. And I frankly, I do remember him giving himself the flu, but I thought that was an episode that happened in season four or something later, season three. I didn't know it happened this quickly. Yeah, this is early on. I will say that this is probably the first and last time that we ever see tissues and a tissue box on Voyager.

Well, he says something like this is a holographic tissue and please don't use this on the patients or something like that. But I mean, in the history of track and definitely of us filming this show, it's not very high tech. No, but no one ever uses a tissue. Like you don't ever see that, you know, ever. So I thought that was interesting.

They had to somehow create. Yeah, it's interesting. futuristic tissue box. Yeah, it was a futuristic tissue box and there were tissues, but you would think that there would be like some technology that would get rid of the mucus if you had it or something like, I don't know what it would be, but like... So would you just say computer, beam the mucus out of my nose or just...

Or a tool, you know, here's my little Apple TV tool, but like, you know, something that you just go and it would just suck it all out or something like some technology but you're right it was like paper tissues yeah that he wiped his nose with which was funny it was very funny yes but to beam somebody's mucus out of their nose would be quite the thing wouldn't yes that'd be different to actually beam it that would feel weird when my kids were little we used to have this sucky thing that you'd stick up the nose when they're infants because they can't clear their nose. Oh, is that what you got it out, how you got it out?

Yeah, it was like a little suction ball thing and you'd squish the air out, stick it up the nose, and then let it go, and it would suck it out. Yeah, and I have to admit, all right, I'm going to admit this on our podcast. Don't tell anybody people. You tried it yourself, didn't you? I did. I tried it. I knew it.

And it's the weirdest feeling. You stick this thing up in there and it goes, and it sucks. And you're like, whoa. Whoa, it's just, you feel it coming from way up in your brain. I see you doing this. I can so see you looking around as if anyone's watching you at your place and just doing it. I got to try this little sucky ball thing. Sucky ball.

I just want to add, I just want to add that the entire time that the B storyline happens with the doctor, I am sitting there thinking, that is not the way you. sneeze or the way that you cough, you need to cough into, I mean, I mean, in this day and age, I felt the same way, well, I felt, A, that Bob's coughing was kind of forced. At first I was like, oh, that seems so fake. Then I was like, oh, it should be kind of an awkward version of coughing and sneezing because it's a programmed version. Like, he's not really sick. So he's, he's programming data so that it will replicate sort of an awkward version of sick. Correct. but we are role models being serious regulars on the show

and so we must act as role models and let everyone or at least everyone should be able to realize that coughing and sneezing should be into the crook of your arm and you should cover it, you know, we all know that now but back there in the mid-90s. We should be doing podcasts with masks on. We should be doing podcasts safely. only you sound pretty good with that thing on yes because i'm safe i don't have the delta flyers

podcast mask on though i for those of you who were listening they were so popular that everybody got them and i don't even have a delta flyer podcast i want to we made the mess that say warp particles with all the little warp particles on it yeah well we made a repro we did a print. So we'll have more. But I got to get some more. But I got to say just I just so people that are listening know what what Robbie did was he grabbed a black face mask and he put it around his face and started talking and sounded pretty good even though it sounded good with the mask going and not only did it sound good, but I was safe and you were sanitary. And there were no or particles spread into this podcast. I love by the

the way, that Neelix calls Tuvok, Mr. Vulcan. I love that he's like, Mr. Vulcan. It is cute. Blah, blah, blah, blah. I just had to make a note of that because I was like, that's adorable.

And the doctor says in this episode, he goes, he said, Kess goes, I thought you, he goes, please state the nature of your medical emergency. Because I thought you deleted that part from your program. And he said, well, yes, but I couldn't, you know, of another uh introduction that wasn't awkward so i just put it back in my program i wonder if that's

because bob was like that's my catchphrase like you need to you know he wanted to write that in more or something i don't know or maybe the writers just couldn't think of another like how what else would the doctor say i don't know i can't that sounds more like it they could they just gave up and they went back to what they they did before it's a good catchphrase though i like it the two but i just said The Tuvok, as in The Voyager. Hey, Garrett, have you been traveling this summer? Oh, my gosh, so much already. I don't always travel, but this summer's been insane.

Trip after trip. You've been doing your impersonation of me. Yes. You know what doesn't belong in everyone's epic summer plans, though? What? Getting burned by your old wireless bill. So while you're planning your beach trips and your barbecues and your three-day weekends, your wireless bill should be the last thing holding you back.

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Up front payment of $45 required, equivalent to $15 a month. Limited time new customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. The Tuvok and Neelix and the Neelix have something in common. They both raised orchids. I'm like, I know. Watching Neelix in that interaction with Tubak when he's talking, it came across me, it came, it came, it came across me. It came across as if, it came across as if there are elements of Homer Simpson in his voice quality at times. I don't know if you hear that or not, but I, Neelix. Really? Yes. I didn't, I didn't notice that. Oh, my God. All right. It's just right then, though, and that when they're on the planet talking about orchids and he's

talking yap and he sounded kind of there. Yeah. Yeah. And it times. Okay. Okay, and by the way, so they're talking, Mr. Volcan and the Talaxian guy, they're talking away. Yep. And I saw Chocote wander over to my wife, Balana. I saw him stroll deep into the woods where they couldn't be seen by anybody. No. I noticed a little, hey, let's go. look balana had a fantasy last week she imagined getting a little something with chakote i saw it i'm not proud of

it stop pulling an elix you're pulling a neelix right now you're doing it's not very becoming upon you i mean just did you did you see them walk in the woods is all i'm saying i did see that but that was totally innocent you're turning into neelix right now oh really yeah really why can't They have that conversation next to Mr. Vulcan and the Nelix. Why can't they do that? Because the Balana was away, and so the Chakote had to go speak to the balana over there. He didn't drag her away from the rest of the people. Oh, no.

She was very willing to walk into the woods privately with him. I saw that. Okay. And then there's a, then the hawk attacks. Then the hawk comes up. Okay. Right. Can I ask you?

Yeah, go. Before you say you remember, can I ask you, that scene reminded me. And maybe you can help me. There's a 1970s film where I think it was like Donald Sutherland, I think, was the actor and he's looking up and this eagle or hawk comes down and grabs, like just attacks him and pulls his eyeballs out. Do you remember this movie? No, I don't.

This scene was just the minute that happened to Nilex, I had flashbacks watching this movie. Donald Sutherland? No, it wasn't the omen. It wasn't the omen. He was, I just remember him walking out. outside some mansion that's in England or something at the time. And this predatory, this either an eagle or a hawk came down and just scooped up, tacked him and yanked out his eyeballs and he was blind.

Don't look now. Could have been don't look now. That was with Julie Christie. Maybe. An old horror movie. Maybe. And it may not even be Donald Sutherland. I might be wrong.

But maybe one of our listeners or viewers will know exactly what scene I'm talking. It was like a 70s film and it really It scared the bejesus out of me Because I saw it as a kid And then watching that scene with Neelix being attacked Just kind of brought that back And you were about to say What did that scene bring up for you?

I was about to say that I remember them bringing a hawk trainer On to the stage To get it to fly up And come at the camera I remember the guy stood right by the camera And had the hawk come towards the camera The problem for me was they used footage of the hawk flying around outdoors

up in the sky. And then when it came, when they had the shot of it flying at the camera, it was on stage. And so it felt like a weird, like, oh, there's a hawk in the real sky, but now it's sort of a weird angle and the lighting was weird. And I don't know, that sort of bump. So it didn't match. It didn't match. It didn't match.

Okay. Okay. The point of view of the hawk and the light of. hawk in the sky to when it flew at the neelix but uh and you know if chakote and balana hadn't been off wandering in the woods by themselves they might have been close by and been able to protect their crew member and their good friend but you know they were off doing whatever they were doing in the woods those two so yeah this is actually worse than neelix because you're jealous of of something of a woman that you haven't even made any overtures to as of yet. You're not even in the thought process of Bologna Torres,

but you're still jealous of it. Unbelievable. Is this the episode where the hawk flew away and they lost the hawk? It might have, or it was up in the, I don't know if it flew away outdoors, but it was like up in the terms. It was the outdoor, no. This is what I heard. I just recalled there was a story about,

when they were filming and they came when obviously we weren't in part we weren't filming those scenes and i just remember someone in the crew said oh my god i can't believe of the hawk flew away and i'm like what and someone told me a story about how they were just going to the hawk was supposed to just fly you know do this like 360 and come back and and they let it go and it kept flying so that and i'm wondering if this was the episode probably was probably was yeah That's funny. It is a funny story, though. I like that.

They find these alien dwellings there and they're abandoned. I got confused a little bit about the weather. Is the weather, do you think, a natural phenomenon or a technology that these alien native people, you know, related to Chukotay's tribe, was that a technology they used to try to keep people away? I just was confused. Yeah, that's what I got. That's what I got. It was. Okay, so it was all technology. They were able to somehow. These guys were weather wizards. They were able to just control the weather and lightning. Yeah. So like the cyclone that the ship got caught in was a weapon. Yeah, it was. It was. And I thought it was very gutsy of Janeway just to say, you know, because we already said every attempt that we're trying to make to beam down whenever we lock on coordinates, some type of weather thing comes up where we can't go through. And so that Janeway is like, well, then we're just going to fly. into it and it's kind of like well well you know why that's because she's got the best pilot in starfleet

clearly balana doesn't know that yet but she does and she knows that the paris can um you know so take care of business is that why she made that decision that's why she was yeah confident yeah because you know being the jane way she felt like i'm the captain and i'm I'm going to trust that the Paris is going to get me down on the voyage. Down to the planet surface. So, all right, I'll go with that. Yeah. I'll go with that.

The doctor calls the bridge in that horrible kind of that voice that he has. He sounds like a candy man. He sounds like some type of, any type of bad guy in any horror movie when he's talking like this to Captain Janeway. It was just like very, again, comedic, you know, nice comedy element there. Very funny. Oh, let's go to Chacote's body double now. Was that his body double or was that as really, really Chacote? Okay, when he took off his clothes? Yes. Okay. Let's talk about this for a minute. In the script, it said, I remember, it said something like, you know, he flashes back to remembering, you know,

changing clothes to be one with the tribe. And so decides he's going to do the same thing. here in these abandoned quarters and right it said in the script something like you know he strips down to nothing and so the network and the studio notes always come back and tell you what you can or can't do and they said you cannot see any bear behind or any and this was 1995 or 96 right so and it was around the same time that NYPD blue was on television and they had uh been made a huge deal because they had shown the first male butt on network television on NYPD Blue. I forget who it was.

Caruso. David Caruso, I think, was the one who got out of bed and walked to the bathroom or something and didn't have pants on. It was not a big deal. But you saw crack. So when our script came out, UPN, our network said,

you cannot show crack. So Robert Beltran, Robert Beltran, they got him some um like flesh colored underwear to wear so that you wouldn't see the butt crack and they were going to put him in the thing and and so they filmed it that way with the flesh color and then they put it put the edited the show together and they showed it to the to the network and the network's like well this is stupid because you can see he doesn't have a butt crack and it just looks weird he doesn't look like a human being and they're like yeah you told us we couldn't

show butt crack. So we put the flesh-colored underwear. So they said, why don't you do a digital butt crack like visual effects, his butt crack in? Dan Curry and the visual effects team at Star Trek Voyager created a digital butt crack for Robert Beltran in that moment. That is not his real butt crack. That is a digital butt crack. Oh my God. That is truly one of more funnier stories of production that we've ever talked about. That didn't even look like him. though from behind in terms of like if you look at the back of his head and the sort of the three quarters profile that you see a little bit that doesn't even look like beltrane i thought like wow that's that's a body double is definitely him for sure i am 99% sure we can check with

him and see but i'm pretty sure he would that was him wearing some some flesh colored underpants and then sporting a digital buck crack i'd like want to call him right now ask him now That would be pretty funny. So Janeway decides to risk the entire ship. Yes, it does. To go get Beltran, who they don't even have life signs for. They can't find the shuttle. There's absolutely no evidence or hint that they could possibly risk everyone's life

and they may all die for nothing. And sometimes I'm like, how can she keep making these decisions? like this is you're going to push your luck too far this is a risk here I'm calling him right now let's see if we call him and see if did he do the butt crack scene yeah let's see if he picks up come on pick up come on Beltran

you're just going to have to take my word for it that that's his butt crack trust me your call has been forwarded to an hour you're right I tried I just every time I look at that I kept rewinding going like That doesn't look like the back of his head. You think that was him, though? Yeah, I'm pretty sure.

All right, I'll find out for sure. I thought it was interesting that the aliens, they don't mind-meld. They don't touch the side of the head. They just touch the top of the chest, and they're able to give all the little information, you know, generations past, which was different. We know where Chakotay's tattoo comes from now. It's from that tribe. Well, not that tribe, but that alien race. That alien race, and he took it in honor of his father.

mother. How much did the main alien look like Gary Oldman's character of Count Dracula in the 1992 film Brand Stoker's Dracula? But those kind of like striations on his head. He did. Very light and pale base makeup on that main alien. That was Richard Fancy was the actor. Richard who?

Richard Fancy is his name. I'm pretty sure that's Richard Fancy. Wonderful, very talented actor. Yes, he looked very vampiric though. He did. I thought. I think Richard has been on a number of Star Trek episodes. Okay.

He may have even been on our show more than once. Really? Possible. But I definitely think he's been on a number of, he's a good act, good theater after two. Okay. I loved, I loved the idea that Chacote loses his universal translator. And, you know, he loses his. His Com badge, which has the translator in it.

Yes. He doesn't have that. so he can't speak their language. And then the idea that they've got this technology just sort of he puts their palms together over this thing and they can. Yeah. And they can understand each other, which I love.

Yeah, but remember what saved him from being phasered by those aliens was him uttering chamoosy. And they were like, what, what would you say? Did you just say chamoosy? That's when they kind of like, coozy. Did you just like coozy? We all need a coozy right now. You need a coozy for your beer?

I got a coozy on my bag. I it's right now it's right now there's in Chinese culture there's the moon festival so they have moon cakes and we always eat moon cakes around this time and I did this hilarious little character for my sister when she was visiting recently I was just talking about you know how being Asian Asian moonshine moonshiner is in the south that we do two things good we make good moonshine and good mooncakes, and it was sort of like this, you know, hybrid character that you look with. Yeah, you know, it's different. We should make some Delta Flyers moonshine, by the way.

You want to get into that? I want to get into like a liquor business, the Delta Flyers liquor store. People are going to think that I need to go to AA or something. You've purchased our baseball caps. You wear our shirts. And now Delta Flyers has their very own vodka. It's like, what? Do you remember Rick Berman gave us one year as a as a rap gift or season, Christmas gift or something? Star Trek

Wine? Because he was really into collecting wine. Do you remember that? We got a Voyager, we got a little box of Voyager it was wine. Not a box wine. It was bottle. He gave us a boxed wine? Oh, he's so generous.

But he gave us a bottle that had a label with the ship on it and it said, or whatever season it was. It might have been the last season. I would have remembered that, Robbie. Call Beltran right now. Call Beltran and ask you. No.

Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Let's see who else like a call right now. Call Rick Berman. I'm not going to call Berman. Call Rick Berman. Rick Berman very generously and very, and very classy gift, I thought. I'm going to call Tim Russ.

You okay with that? I called, yeah. Let's see if Tim Russ got that gift. It was a bottle of wine that said Star Trek Voyager, cast and crew. Oh, no one's available today. No one is, no one, no one loves us. No one cares. No one loves us.

They should be available. They should not let things go to voicemail. How dare they? All right. I'm going to. Oh, oh, oh, very important. I'm going to call Picardo about the wine, just about the wine. Can you hear that?

Yeah, I can hear. Okay. Let's see if he answered. Hello. Bob. Hey, Robbie. It's Robbie Duncan McNeil. I have to tell you right away, you're on our podcast.

We're recording. We have a question for you. I have to tell you that I am riding a bike out in the smoke in Northern California with a Face mascot. Good for you. Stay safe. Stay healthy. Biking and masking at the same time

as a healthy choice. Thank you. Do you remember us getting a bottle of wine that Rick Berman had labeled with a Star Trek Voyager label and it was a cast and crew bottle of wine and it was a Star Trek bottle. Do you remember this?

I do remember one of our Christmas presents from production was Shramsburg sparkling wine that, you know, Sramsberg is a California maker of sparkling wine and it was quite good and yes, they were custom made, they had put Voyager on the label.

On the label. Now you're remembering a sparkling white wine or are you remembering a red one? I don't remember white, red or sparkling, but I knew there was a bottle that had a special label. And I believe I may still have mine somewhere in storage. I don't remember

if I ever drank it, but yes, but it would certainly keep safe. Well, if you do, if you did, whoa. I just fell down. No. Dude, you're causing Bob Ricardo

to die. Oh my God, I almost killed the doctor. You almost killed the doctor. It had nothing to do with you, Robbie. No, I disagree. Oh, boy. Are you? Anyway, I'm back up. Are you okay?

I'm back up. Oh, are you kidding? Nothing gets me down, folks. I am indomitable. Okay, I'm going to, now I feel stupid. You know what? It sounded very, very brave and courageous and skilled, the way that you sounded. Yes. I don't know that I should say this on your podcast, but I seem to have scraped very, very severely, the upper left part of my butt cheek.

Oh, no. Now, having played a television doctor in the future for seven years, I shouldn't know the anatomical term. I guess it's upper butt cheek. Upper butt cheek. Yeah. Medius Maximus. Well, I hope you're, I think you need to go immediately to the medical bay. Physician heal thyself.

Physician heal myself. I'm, I seriously hope you're okay, and now I'm going to be worried. The rest of this. No, I will be fine. Okay. And by the time your listeners hear this, I'm sure that the giant scratch on the upper left of my butt cheek will have healed 20%. Okay. Well, you know, Bob, I think I feel closer to you now because of your butt injury, because I had a butt injury on Voyager.

Oh, I remember. In the Captain Proton sequence, I had my butt cheeks burned. And so I feel closer to you now because of our common butt problems. That's why we butt call each other all the time. Exactly. I'm going to tell you a quick, I actually wrote some Star Trek jokes. Oh, God. For the cruise, but I'm going to tell you one based on an actual,

apparently in one of the original series episodes, they mentioned Orelian Lung Maggots, Orrelian Lung Maggots, and your listeners can check me on that. I think that's exactly how you can. So when somebody assigned you the task of writing a gag about Aurelian lung maggots, where do you go? What do you do? How do you handle that challenge? Well, here's how I did, okay?

I'm scanning the viewer, or in this case, you're a listener. Yes. And then I look down at my tricorder and I say, you have Aurelian lung maggots. But instead of being in your lungs, they're located in your lower bowel. I know that Mr. Neelix is quite the practical joker. Has he been blowing smoke up your ass? What do you think? Pretty good.

Oh, very good. Very good. Or really in lung maggots. Okay, take care of yourself. Put some antibiotic cream on that and have a glass of Star Trek Voyager wine to feel better. All right. Nice. Okay.

Best to your audience. Best to Gary. Okay. I'll talk to you soon, Bob. Thanks, Bob. We love you. You almost killed the doctor. I am blaming you on this one.

And then that part where he says, by the time, by the time your listeners hear this, and he took a pause, I waited for his next line to be, I'll be dead, is what I wanted to be coming into my brain. Well,

I figured he had like earphones on and, you know, ear, like earbuds and to, you know, a lot of people exercise with like an earbud and they can, they can,

you know, run and talk, you know, listen to music, whatever they do. Oh, my God. Well, you know what? This is just everyone can see.

This is live. This is authentic. This is raw. This is real. We're doing it live. We almost had the, we almost had an actual live recording of the death of Bob Picardo. I mean, that's incredible. We did hear the death of his upper butt cheek.

And, you know, it ties it in with the butt crack, the digital butt crack. exactly it's become the theme of this show it has something to do with butts and i am we just need to move on i i can't believe he fell down wow okay so you were right robby we did get some type of alcoholic wine it was a wine and to be honest i i i yeah i'm not a big drinker so that's probably why i don't remember that thing i probably gave it away you probably did um and the fact that Bob Picarda still has his in storage somewhere is even better. It's perfect. Yeah, that's perfect. Of course he does. He's so organized with this stuff. Oh, my God. Anyway, we get to the end of our episode. Yeah. And I just loved, I loved Robert's

performance in this. I loved this idea of ancestors and a father-son relationship. I just really connected to that. I love the idea about, you know, these, these aliens coming. And seeing these people who had respect for the land and other living creatures, they say, they were impressed very deeply by that. And so they gave them an inheritance, they called it, a genetic binding that would that would keep them bound together forever, this alien race and these native people and this tribe. I love that idea. I love that. Although there were flashes of Star Trek 4, the feature film, where they come home and the whales were involved.

And basically the alien monolith returns to Earth thousands of years later and tries to send a message to the whales. There's no response back. So it's up to the Star Trek crew to go back in time to bring whales back to the future because they've been basically hunted to extinction. So it was sort of a nice thinking about Mother Earth sort of allegory. Right? Let's conserve. I do think that the big question, obviously, for most of the viewers, would be like, well, if you've already traveled to Earth, help the Voyager crew and get them back to Earth. Of course, the writers say, yeah, that very quick line.

Two generations. It took more than two generations to get to your planet. So you have a very long journey in front of you. Yeah. So that was, you know. That was their way of tying up. I like that. I like that.

Lusend up, yeah. Yeah. But it's very nice that Chocote gets to tie up his loose end, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And really realizing that these sky spirits were real. You know, this wasn't just some legend.

And how often do people get to prove a myth or something that, a creation story of their people? How often do you get to find proof of that, which they do, which is really super cool? I loved it. I really loved the ending. It really kind of all came together. for me. And I thought the sci-fi part of it was great. I thought the actor, the guest actors were great. Alex Singer did a great job. Robert Beltran did a great job. The visual effects department with their butt cracks were phenomenal. The butt crack department was phenomenal.

I thought it was great. I really enjoyed it. The B storyline with the doctor, obviously, the lack of compassion that he had in the beginning he then develops more compassion or at least a better understanding of it because he puts himself through the same you know rigmaroles of being really really ill I think the theme here is sometimes

we have to get out of our own shoes and imagine what it would like to be in someone else's shoes and if not imagine actually put ourselves in the person's shoes, right, into shoes that we've never experienced that type of life before, whatever you want to say. That's one theme that I saw. And, of course, the conservancy theme about not ruining every natural resource that your planet has.

It was also kind of big for me in this episode. I kind of agree with you in a lot of ways. I thought the theme for me was very much about trusting in the experience of our elders, I guess, people who have had experience before us to have trust and faith in the wisdom of that experience. And I think, you know, that goes for the doctor storyline. He didn't trust or believe in the wisdom of people saying being sick sucks. And he didn't believe it and he didn't trust it. And he had to experience it himself.

Young Chikote, you know, really didn't trust his father's experience and wisdom. And then wanted to go off, you know, went to Starfleet Academy, you know, secretly sort of applied, didn't tell his dad, didn't value some of the things that ultimately he ended up kind of coming full circle and really wanting. So I can relate to that. Like I said, I related this a lot to my own personal life. and my father. And I think in my journey, I saw a full circle there of, you know, kind of rejecting many of his things in his life years back. And then coming full circle will really value

his wisdom and his, and his experience in his life as he was getting older before he passed away. So I love this episode. I thought it was really good. Yeah. Well, thank you for your clarification on the themes. I enjoyed that. And respect your elders, people. Value them. Value them. Yes, value your elders. Exactly. All right. Well, I'm going to thumbs up this episode as well. I enjoyed it as well as you did. And thank you guys for listening in to our recap of tattoo and not Fantasy Island tattoo. Voyager tattoo. All right, guys. So join us next week when we review Coldfire.

Bye, guys.