The Delta Flyers - The Ascent

Episode Date: February 3, 2026

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, The Ascent, is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, and Armin Shimerman.The Ascent: When the Runabout crashes on a barren planet, the freezing temperatures and lack of amenities induce Odo and Quark to get along or die. 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, Andrew Duncan, Tim Neumark, Ian Ramsey, Feroza Mehta, Jenny Cordina, Izzy Jaffer, Andrew Cano, Francesca Garibaldi, Jonathan Capps, Chris Dellman, Chris Garis, Sean T, Cindy Woodford, & Tamara Evans. Our Co-Executive Producers:Liz Scott, Sarah A Gubbins, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Elaine Ferguson, Captain Jeremiah Brown, E & John, Deike Hoffmann, Anna Post, Cindy Ring, Lee Lisle, 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, Penny Liu, Matt Norris, David Smith, Stacy Davis, Heath K., Ryan Mahieu, Robby Hill, Kevin Harlow, Megan Doyle, & Jeff Allen.And our Producers:Philipp Havrilla, James Amey, Jake Barrett, Sab Ewell, Ann Harding, Trip Lives, Samantha Weddle, Paul Johnston, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Carl Murphy, Jocelyn Pina, Chad Awkerman, AJ Provance, Maxine Soloway, Heidi McLellan, Brianna Kloss, Dat Cao, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Alexander Ray, Kelly Brown, Sarah Thompson, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Renee Wiley, Maria Rosell, Sarah, Dominique Weidle, Jesse Bailey, Mike Chow, Matt Edmonds, Miki T, Heather Selig, Steph Davies, Stephanie Aves, Seth Carlson, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, Annie Davey, Jeremy Gaskin, Sarah Dunnevant, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Eddie Dawson, Lauren Rivers, Jennifer B, PJ Pick, Preston M, Rebecca Leary, SnazzyO, Karen Galleski, Jan Hanford, Katelynn Burmark, Timothy McMichens, Cassandra Girard, Andrea Wilson, Slacktwaddle, Willow Whitcomb, Mo, Leslie Ford, Jim Poesl, Daniel Chu, Scott Bowling, Michael Jones, Ed Jarot, James Vanhaerent, Nick Cook-West, Kilian Trapp, Katherine M. Prioli, Nelson Silveira, Kit Marie Rackley, Gordon Watson, Andy Bruce, Andrew Golden, Durrell Bishop, Rebecca Long, Daniel Friend, & Damien O’DonnellThank 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] 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 Decks and their good friends, Tom and Harry Kim. Join us as we make our way through episodes of Star Trek Deep Space 9. Thank you, Tom Harris. Your host for today are my fellow Trek actors, Armand Shimmerman, Robert Duncan McNeil, and myself, Garrett Wong, for the complete and exciting version of this podcast. Please check out Patreon.com. That's P-A-T-R-E-O-N-com forward-slash the Delta Flyers and sign up to become a patron today. Harry Kim, I want to go with your full character. You can start saying that from now on, yes.

If you want to include the middle initials, remember, there's S and L as well. Harry S-L-Kim, which I jokingly said stood for Sushi L-N-Kin because they never told me what S-L- meant, so it could be anything. I like sushi-loven. Hi, I didn't have a last name, so. Or maybe I didn't have a first name. You're like Cher. You're an icon. You don't even need a last name.

I've always told people on the one show on Star Trek, I didn't have a last name. And on the other show, on Buffy, I didn't have a first name. No, that's true. They put him together. What was your last name on Buffy? Snyder. Principal Snyder. And he had no first name.

Just Snyder. Cork Snyder. Cork Snyder is great. Cork Snyder. Is that the way with all Ferengi? They have no family name? There's no. I don't know.

There's never been a Ferengi with two names. Interesting. And they're almost invariably one-syllable names. Yes. Rong. Grog. Quark. Right.

One-syllable names. And not two. Interesting. Which I suppose is indicative. It's a terrible way to look at this, but of our height that we're just short. Oh. I did notice in this episode, Surak grew so much. Yes.

We haven't seen. We haven't seen Jake and Nog together for a while. while. Yeah. And to see Sirrock in this episode, how tall, he's tall. How tall is Sirak? Six foot three? He was at this point, I think in season five, I would arguably say that he was the tallest person in the cast. So he's taller than Avery at this point? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Six three sounds right? Maybe six four, is he? Maybe six four. He's really tall. He's a tall. He may not, he may not have been taller than Michael Dorn, but, um, but he certainly, I think is taller than Avery. Michael Dorn, really?

I think Michael's about my height, six feet. I think shorter arm. Really? Yeah. Well, okay. But I think Michael, I mean, you've stood next to him so you know. And everybody's taller and I am, so I can't judge. But I would have thought Michael was a little taller.

But that may just be his personality. I think when he was dressed as Worf. He's taller as Warf. That may be it. The boots, the prosthetics, the big cling on hair thing. Everything's big. Everybody on the show had high heels except for me. Right.

Interesting. I think we have some birthdays to acknowledge, Robbie. Yes, we do. We do. First, let's start with Sean T. On February 2nd, it's his birthday. Sean, happy birthday. Happy birthday, Sean.

Happy birthday, Sean. Happy birthday, Sean. Next up, we have Karen Gilleski. February 5th, 2.5. Happy birthday, Karen. Happy birthday, Karen. Happy birthday, Karen. Have a great day.

Our last birthday. This week is for E on February 7th. Happy birthday, E. E, congratulations. Happy birthday, E! I'm very proud of this. I'm in a zone lately. Oh, you have.

With my poems. Oh, I didn't know. Yeah. I should have known. I've taken a different approach that I'm trying to focus not on the plot, because it's hard to squeeze. plot into a limerick. So instead of trying to capture all the events, I just focus on like a character. So this week, I focused kind of on you. Ooh, let's go. Here we go. On a mountain where tempers would

fray, Odo and Quark crashed their shuttle one day. But when Quark looked at death, he fought with his last breath and climbed into being a hero on the way. Thank you. That's very nice indeed. Thank you. You're welcome. Later on, I want to discuss why do they decide to make Quark a hero. I'm not sure why they get that. But yes.

Yes. Yes. He is a hero in this episode. Yes, he is. Yeah, he goes beyond his potential. See, Armand, whenever you get a little salty about the treatment of cork by the other DS9 series regulars, just think of Robbie and I, because we always elevate you. We love cork.

And place you on a pedestal. Yes, but you're 30 years too late. If we invent a Thai machine, we will be back there to boost your morale for sure. You had the opportunity. Listen, we were all working together. You could have come over and we didn't know how we had no idea. We didn't know. We did not know that Quark was basically a punching bag by with for everyone for a long time.

We did not know that. Yeah, I should have put a sign up. You're absolutely. Welcome sound stage seven where Quark is a punching bag. Yes. All right. coup time. Here we go. Odo arrests quark. Orion's plant shuttle bomb. Quark climbs the summit. Hmm. Nice. Thank you. Yes. Yes, he does climb the summit. The moral summit as well.

As well as the physical summit. I will tell you a story a little bit later, but about. I want to hear about the location that you filmed at. I have a feeling it was very challenging. What about it? Etymology. The word assent, or ascent, according to the OED, is from the French Descentre, or Descentre, both French words. The definition is the act of mounting or soaring up, upward movement, rise. Or the second definition is, rise in thought, which I think is appropriate here for the conversation we were just having, arise in thought, estimation, social station, I think this again, referring back to what we were just talking about, advancement.

There was an example that I wrote down. His assent is not by any such easy degrees. And that's from Coriolanus Act 2, Scene 2. So it's not only about going up, physically going up, but morally, spiritually, intellectually, moving up the latter. Enlightenment in a way. Enlightenment. Yes. Okay.

Very good enlightenment. I like it. All right. This episode was written by Ira Stephen Bear and Robert Hewitt Wolf and directed by our good buddy, Alan Craker. Yay. He was relatively new to the Star Trek world at this point. Right. And then he became a fixture.

Yes, became a fixture. Absolutely. I think one thing I noticed in this episode was Alan Craker puts actors at ease and you can feel it. You can feel it. With all of the actors in this episode, I remember it when he was directing us. I remember it from Chuck when he came on to direct a bunch of episodes of Chuck. The actors just loved him. They were just at ease.

They felt safe. They felt like they could explore. And I felt that in this episode a lot with you and Renee and everybody. Yeah. Brings out good performances. Well, of the 170s or so episodes that we did, this is the most vibrant, memory I have of all the episodes was doing this one mainly because it was with Renee for all of my scenes and our scenes was with Renee and two because it was outside I believe this is the first time

I've actually shot outside of Soundstage 7 and gone on location and it was quite a trip we had to travel to Mount Whitney in order to shoot this and when And every ready, I will tell you the story of the problem it caused me. Okay. Let's talk about it when we get to those scenes in the location. I can't wait. Perfect. All right.

So we have guest stars, Max Gredenchik, as Rom, and Aaron Eisenberg as Nog. That's it. It's kind of a bottle show in a way, but also with the nature as well. Yeah, the bottle for all of that stuff. Yeah, the B story for sure. And you guys out in Mount Whitney. Wow. Yeah.

All right. The trivia that I have for you is that the origin of this episode is to be found in Iris Stephen Bear's love for the 1949 Samuel Beckett play, waiting for Godot. He and Robert Hewitt Wolf used the play as their template for The Ascent. Wow. Waiting for Godot. Interesting. Or when Andy directed it, they didn't call it Godot. They went Godot.

Godo? I think that's the correct French. Is that the correct pronunciation? Yeah, Godot. We in America say, you know, Godot, right. But I believe the correct pronunciation is Godo. Godo. Which makes more sense because Godo is sort of God.

I saw a production of Godot at the Matrix. Is that the one that Andy directed? Oh, that's probably why I sound. They were they said Godo. Yes, Godo, yeah. Yeah, I saw that production. It was very good. It was one of the Matrixes better productions.

and they've always did really good productions, but that was one of the that excelled. It was terrific, and they had two casts, as they normally did at that time at the Matrix, good friends all that were involved in that, Tony and Mandela, Greg Hitts and John Vickering. J.D. Cullum. J.D. Cullum?

Yes, J.D. Yeah, I remember J.D. I'd never seen him on stage before, and he was wonderful. Yes, is lucky, yeah. Yeah. Armin, when you mentioned the Ascent having a French origin, I'm wondering, do a lot of the,

French origin words that we use in English. Are they there because of the invasion in 1066 by the Normans of the Saxons? Would that be correct? Excellent. French was the, was the royal language for many, many years. The court only spoke French because of the Norman invasion. And a lot of our English words come from the French. Either that or the Teutonic, because before the French invaded, the, what's the word for it, the Teutonic tribes invaded England and so the Middle English, the old English,

has a lot of Teutonic words in it. I've been watching a series called King and the Conqueror, which is all about William, the Conqueror and King Harold of the Saxon side of it. So it's been a wonderful series to watch. The study of language is always,

been very important to me, so all of this is mother's milk to me. Speaking of which, if I may, at this time, perhaps I can use this moment to advertise a class that I'm about to teach. Yes, and please tell us. Which will be a Zoom class, so anyone out there, I advocate that you go to the Anteas website, let me spell that for you. It's www.a-a-a-n-t-e-u-s. and I'll be teaching a Shakespeare class where I talk about language on March the 28th and 29th.

I believe there are two separate classes, but they might be one class. And I believe just to get this out of the way that the fee is $125. But we won't do it until March, so there's lots of time to go to www. NTS.org and sign up for the class. When I taught this class before, it's been astounding. I've had people from around the world all in the Zoom class together. I remember once I had a student from Afghanistan, I had a person from China, I had a person from India, lots of English people, excuse me, people from England, Irish people from Ireland. And it's quite eclectic.

That sounds so exciting. And to be able to access that on Zoom from all over the world is amazing. It's for the most part. It's a lecture on language and Shakespeare and rhetoric. But there is some acting involved. You don't have to be an actor to attend, of course. But you will learn more about the language. The very stuff that Garrett was just talking about is part of my lecture series. That's great. Yeah, everyone. Sign up. It's anteus.org is where you can sign up for this class. Correct? Right. And Anteus is a Greek word, and our theater is named after a Greek mythological. character. And T-S. Oh, wow.

A-T-A-E-U-S dot org. Great. Great. Great. Well, good luck with that and have fun for all those that can attend. It sounds really wonderful. Great. Let's dive right into this episode.

Let's do it. This is interesting because we don't know the star date. Usually there's like a captain's log or something. Star Date, blah, blah, blah. We don't even know the Star Date. So this is a timeless episode, Armin. Your performance is timing. We start off in Cisco's quarters.

Jake is packing up a suitcase, and we learned in the scene he's moving out. He's packing a lot, according to Cisco, and we learn he's moving in with Nog. And Cisco says he thinks these quarters are too far away. He says, you know, G12 is practically right next door, but Jake's not moving to G12. He's over in Section M. So very far. the other side of the habitat ring. Too far away for Cisco.

Not far enough for Jake. Yeah, not far enough for Jake. Cisco confirms the rules that they've agreed to, no surprise visits, but they'll have dinners, drop by, all that stuff. And then Jake heads out with a suitcase, not even closed. Not even closed. He's carrying so much stuff. And that's something they must have done because that's not in my script.

It's not in my, in fact, it's quite explicit that the suitcase does. clothes in the script. Oh, okay. And that nothing is sticking out. Um, but of course, when you're actually shooting something and you've got a thousand things to think about, you don't always get, you know, clothes in the suitcase. Exactly. I like that detail that it's, that he's just, it's messy. It's part of his whole story. It's the foreshadow. He's in a hurry. He's in a foreshadow of his messiness. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's, uh, it's, uh, it's, not Felix. Who's, who's, who's the messy one in the odd couple? Felix. Felix. Felix. No, no, the other one, Oscar. Oscar. Oscar. Oscar. Oh, yeah. Oh, oh, oh, he's

That's right. He's Oscar. He's Oscar. And I don't know if I said it, but he's moving in with Nog. Yes, you did. Do learn that. Okay. And Nog has been away and now Nog is coming back. Correct. He's back from Starfleet Academy. Mm-hmm. And we go to, it looks like Roms' quarters, or... Yeah, I think it's Roms' quarters. Rom is arranging the room, the doorbell rings. And I thought at first that that might be from behind, you don't see Roms' face in the beginning. So I thought, oh, we've cut to Nog. But then he turns around and it's ROM. Okay.

Which I thought was, you know, just a little detail, directorially, that sort of keeps your anticipation of Nog coming back going a little longer. And he's anal retentive, which we already knew about ROM. Yes. You know, part of his neurosis. Yeah. Makes him a good engineer. Yeah.

But what a nice uncle. Cork shows up with root beer, which is, you know, Cork hates root beer, obviously. But it's Nog's favorite drink. So why not? You got a lot of root beer. And it's got a lot of it. It's got a carton. I've never seen a refrigerator in any of these rooms.

I guess there must be some place to put it. Yeah. The tops on those root beers were interesting. It was like, it looked like a baby's bottle or something on top with a little. Yes. It was different. Yeah. Rom tries to, he drinks one.

Rom decides he's going to try one. Says it's very fizy, which I thought was funny. Yeah. Doorbell rings. again it's Odo arriving and he comes in just in a great mood because he is finally going to arrest Quark for his some big offense. Right. And he doesn't tell you what it is, which I was a little offended by.

I'm like, even in the present day, you have to tell people what the charges are. You have to say, I'm detaining you for this. But Quark is beneath contempt, so why even waste breath on him? But that's in this country, you have to tell somebody. There's certain countries that are just like this where you aren't told what you did and you go straight to prison usually. Seems like the federation would have some rules to protect people here. But I guess Odo's not technically federation.

He is not. No. No. He doesn't fall under that. Yeah. And this court that they eventually will go to, I don't think is federation either. No, he says Federation Grand Jury. Oh, does he?

Okay. He does. Yeah, Federation Grand Jury on Inferna Prime, right? Mm-hmm. Right, right. Infernal, I think he says infernal prime. Does he say infernal? That sounds like a rock band.

Inferno Prime on stage next. Okay. Now, you were very relaxed getting this news. Yeah. Because he knew that he wasn't. It's wrong. It's wrong. It's wrong.

It's wrong. It's wrong. It's wrong. You're absolutely. Oh. Yeah. I watch, I mean, I have criticisms of my performance in this episode. Well, what do you think?

Tell us. I should have been a little bit more concerned. Because really, him coming in and being so overjoyed that he's finally going to arrest me to think of it to defend what I did, which I don't want to do, which is I've been arrested so many times by Odo that this is just another one. But I really, when I look at my performance, I think there's, I should have been. more perturbed by this announcement. And it's certainly for getting ready to see Nog. It's ruining your plans. It's ruining my plans for the getting together with my nephew for the first time in a long time. Well, you know, I bought it because I felt like you knew that you were a witness in that one, you know, that's he doesn't tell me. He doesn't tell you that

the beginning. That's true. It's true. So if anything, instead of concern, I think maybe there could have been more confusion on the part of Cork. I'm like, what are you talking about? Just what? I've done nothing. You know, maybe that. But the writers didn't give me those lines. They did not. It's mostly my fault. I'll take blame for it. But the writers could have helped me out here by giving me, what are you talking about? I could just that would have been sufficient. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. I mean, the upside to your choice was I immediately thought, Quark's not guilty of anything. Of anything, yeah.

But he doesn't know what he's being charged. He doesn't even know. Yeah. But you know what you've been doing in the last three months, though. I mean, you're pretty... I've been doing a lot. If you think I've only been doing one thing, you're sadly a mistake. Okay, fine.

He's always got something going on. Something happening up his sleeve. Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, we cut to the runabout Rio Grande. They are on their way to this grand jury. Oh, the Rio Grande headed to the grand jury.

Oh. Oh. Do you think they got that? I don't know. On the 80s rock planet, Infernal Prime. Exactly. And why am I not locked up? If it's that heinous a crime, then shouldn't I be locked up or in some way restrained?

Yeah. It's a little too easygoing. The whole, this whole rest thing is just very easygoing. It is very easygoing. So it takes, it takes the thread away. It takes the threat of Quark finally being convicted of something that he's done. Busted, yeah. It takes it away.

And whether it's primarily the actor's fault, I will always take responsibility first. But also, let's lay it at not only the writer's feet, but also the director's feet. We should have had a little bit more tension about him go on his way. usually when any of the Starfleet characters are on their way on a mission, there's a tension there. There was no tension here whatsoever. I mean, it makes sense later on, spoiler alert, when we find out that Oda really didn't know anything. He was baiting you to try to get you to confess to things. So it does make sense why he wanted you on the bridge with him to hopefully confess to something or give him some information that you eventually come out with later on. But

But I agree with you. It did occur to me. I thought, oh, I wish Alan had added some stakes here a little more pressure in terms of the performance. But there was an upside to your playing the innocence 100%. I did enjoy that. Thank you. Yes, Quark is bored up here on the bridge. And why is he bored?

I don't know. Why? Because the journey is so long. Really? Oh, that's true. Yes. That's true. And yet, we get to the end of the episode.

Yes. Odo says this is going to take us days to get there, right? So, yeah, it's a long journey. Cork wants to play cards. Odo really does not want to play cards. He's reading. And Cork says he thought all his problems, all of Odo's problems were because he was a changeling. But he realizes, no, he's just always going to be a grumpy guy who doesn't enjoy life at all.

And Cork grabs his book that he's reading. And then he realizes, oh, wait, maybe he's not. not as boring. Odo's not as boring as I thought he's reading a romance novel, which I thought was very funny. Oh my God. I was laughing my butt off. And also, Robbie, it was more than a day because it's a hundred and ninety one hours, give or take a day. Okay. Oh, it's days. Yeah, I meant days. Plural. Okay. I thought you said it was a day to get there. No, it's days to get there. Like a week. Days to get there. Let's remember that for later on. We'd also learn in the scene that quark has a first edition of the Vulcan love slacks.

The romance novel novel from Vulcan, which I thought was very funny. Vulcan love slave. Yeah. Is it a good book, Armin? It is a very good book. Yeah, especially page 37. Wow. All right.

What is the reason that Odo gives for reading this romance novel? He's learning about criminal behavior because a lot of criminals read this sort of thing. Yes. So all the ladies out there and all of you guys who read romance novels, This is all criminal behavior, courts. You offer him to sell him your first edition of Vulcan Loveslaw, but he says, no, no, just leave me alone. And Quark wants to know the charges in this scene. It's about time.

After a couple of days, I think it's about time. Otto says, no, this is super secret information. Super secret investigation cannot tell you the charges and goes back to his readings. So it doesn't look like he's trying to find out anything from Quark. which is, again, later seen. It's not like he's trying to, you know, suss out what this mission is really about. And again, I just, I love this episode in my memory. In my memory, I just loved this episode.

And as I watched it this time, I went, oh, there are flaws. There are a lot of flaws that I didn't see before. It's hard because, you know, we've said this a thousand times, but the writers were writing these stories so quickly every seven days. They had to have a new script. And, you know, with the time away from it like you've had, Armin, to go back and look, you start to see some of that rushed. They don't have time to read and reread and kind of just, you know, marinate in the story and go, oh, wait a minute, we should have Odo fishing here a little more. They didn't have time to catch those flaws.

And as Garrett said earlier on, you know, they're emulating waiting for Godo. And so that's their main focus, I think. And so this getting this preparatory time before the important thing that happens a little bit later on. It's just sort of filler until we get to the meaty stuff. Yeah. Well, we cut to the captain's office. Nog reports for duty. He's very official, Nog.

It's like a whole new Nog. We've never seen this version. And Avery never clocks that. No, he doesn't. He does not clock that at all, which is, again, a flaw. He should have gone, who is this kid? You know, this is not the nog that I know. He doesn't.

And in fact, what he does bring to this scene is left over residual antipathy towards Nog that he's had before and doesn't take into consideration. This is a different Nog in front of me. Yeah. I'm going to be the counterpoint on that. I think the very final, the, final bit of dialogue from Cisco does clock it just a little bit because he says you inspire me with confidence cadet dismissed so it's almost like he's like yes if he read it like that garrett i would go

with you okay but he didn't he says it very ironically it's like i have this like to say other way then yeah i think he's very ironic oh you inspire me with confidence cadet it's more like that is that that you this is just a behavior that you're putting on. I don't believe it when I owed it. Oh, wow. He sort of searches for that word. He says you, and it's painful to say, inspire me with confidence.

Yeah, let me say one thing. The performance says something else. So the performance, it's a dig. He's digging at him still. He's still seeing him as the old. That's how I heard it. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. Which is a shame because, and Armin, I guess I'll jump to my quibble at the end. I feel like that's true with a lot of characters in this, including Quark. I think that the growth, especially that the Ferengi characters are making, is not being acknowledged by the other characters. The only one that does it in this episode is Miles O'Brien. That's right.

When he says, Nag, you did really great today. And he seems sincere about it in earnest. That's the only one. Everybody else is referring back to the first season of Deep Space Nine. I'm thinking about Tom Paris as a character and how he came on as being kind of contemptible by a lot of characters. He was a very flawed character. And by the end, I feel like people acknowledged the change in Tom Paris and the growth. They really did.

And without that, I think I would be very bitter as an actor and as a character. I think if those characters had not acknowledged the growth Tom Paris made over seven years, And I'm seeing, especially in this episode, Ferengi growth from every character, from Nag, from Quark, ROM is now an engineer, he's got a Starfleet uniform on. Like, these Ferengi characters are changing and growing, and people should acknowledge that. And not just in dialogue, but in the performance, in the way that they...

In the performance. Even Nana, in the next scene, we're going to talk about it. But even Kira is very suspicious of Nog's comments and growth and yeah well let's get to it we go out on the end to ops kira's still pregnant asked nog in a very short scene how did it go and nog says i inspire him is what he says and kira's response was very again almost um ironic oh congratulations don't let him down so it wasn't wow you're a different nog yeah i wish we had seen that a bit more because i saw it as an audience viewer sure i mean what what aaron is doing it's a different nog it's a physically different

he looks really fit by the way in this episode he does like he's gone to the gym or something a lot of days at the gym and and he's and his demeanor is different and he's he's not cackling anymore does smile a lot but he doesn't cackle anymore it's a he's a serious cadet and no one is is recognizing that And that, I cannot tell you, even 30 years later, it still pains me to see that behavior. Not Knox's behavior, but everyone reacting to Knox. Yes, but as viewers, Robbie and I both acknowledge his change. We see it. We see it.

Yes, the audience sees it. So why didn't the actors see it? Yeah. At this point, Nana has already had her child, correct? In real life? In real life, yeah, because we talked about how, I think we already talked about that. She looks very pregnant. No, but I'm saying for the story.

maybe they kept her fake pregnant because that child hadn't, you know, been born in the story, but in real life. In the real life, I think she'd already had the child at one point. Because we had an episode where we were talking about how it was, do you remember this? It was on the planet. It was going to be here in the storyline. Yeah.

Sid was with doing something about breaking up with Chase Masterson. That's right. That's right. Right. And we were saying he wasn't that focus because I had mentioned that that Nana had actually given birth. That was the Riza episode. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Which is fairly recent from. Unless this was filmed, unless this was filmed before. I don't remember. It could have been. And they flip-flopped it, right? Maybe. Maybe. They did the same thing on Voyager with Bala. Yeah. So.

So. So. And they had had had a baby and they hid the pregnancy the year before the season before. They didn't address it. story right but in real life she had a baby and then the next year they decided to write a pregnancy story a fake pregnancy for the story so and they put a fake belly on her then yeah put a fake belly on her so but but she looks flushed i mean she looks pregnant it's not that just the belly it's right she looks like she's got water retention not in the bad way that's what happens in pregnancy yeah it's hard to tell i'm a little confused yeah yeah well the next scene after Nogg says the captain is inspired by him. We go into Jake and Nog's quarters. Jake and

Nog arrive in this suite. It's a beautiful, beautiful quarters. They're both very impressed and excited. Nog immediately checks for dust on the countertop. He signs them odd and even cleaning days. Talks about going to bed early by 10 p.m., which I took offense to because I'm in bed by 10 p.m. I don't think that's too early. But I like that dialogue between the odd and even ones. And so Jake goes, after Nag says, I'll do the odd, you do the even. And Jake says, we're going to clean every day. And Nag goes, no, just the odd and even ones.

And I started laughing so hard. It was like, oh, my God. It is every day. Okay. Very funny. That's very funny. Yeah, we learned that Nag wants to get up at 4.30 for the gym every day. That's a little excessive in my book.

Yeah. And he heads out and Jake is a bit concerned at the end of this scene. Well, at least Jake has clocked the fact that Nog has changed. Yeah, Jake knows. Jake knows. Exactly. I like their quarters, though. I liked, I don't know what set they recycled for this, whose room it was.

But maybe Miles, it looked a little like the O'Brien's quarters? The O'Brien's quarters. It might have been, of course. It might have been O'Brien's. They're very spacious. Yeah. Very spacious. For two young.

lads. I thought that was a very luxurious accommodation. We're back on the Rio Grande in the next scene and Quark is so bored. He's tossing the playing cards, which definitely looked like coasters for sure. I thought they were coasters. Yeah. See your notes. It's the playing cards from earlier when they're playing Fisbon, right? The Fisbon cards. Yeah. It's FisB's cards. But it's also the cards that we use for, not Dabo, but for no, this is another game. Tango. Tongo. Oh. Oh. Okay. Got it. They're tango cards. For our show, they're tango cards. Got it. All right. So in the beginning, you know, super bored, but all of a sudden, there's a buzzing sound.

And they're like, everyone's like, what? Where's that coming from? I have no idea. No, no. So, sorry. Only quark hears the buzzing sound. Ah, sorry. So quark hears a buzzing sound. Corto does not. He's like, but that's the game. Yeah, it's, it's the Ferengi ears are so sensitive that he's eating soup. And I saw Renee to it. It was like there was the slightest little breath sound. And he wasn't supposed to do that because as I said, I have the script in front of me. And the writers are very specific.

They did not want to hear a sound. Oh. They did not want to hear a sound. Now, we understand the quark hears the sound. But they did not want the audience to hear anything. Oh, interesting. Yeah, because Renee did a little bit of an inhale of the soup, the tiniest bit. Right.

Huh. So anyway, it's Quark that hears the buzzing. Yes. And then eventually, I think Odo does also catch a bit of a buzz going on. They can hear the buzz. They go over to, I guess it's a panel on the floor. Is that right? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And once they open the panel, they realize, and that's got to be the coolest looking bomb I've ever seen. I was like, what the heck is that thing? But it's a bomb. It's about to go on. off. It looked to me like, do you remember those toys when you were a kid that you'd pull the string? It was a top and it had all the metal. It was like a metal, um, sculptured sort of top that you

would spin. Do you remember those? No. After my time. It was made of metal. Yeah, it was made of metal and it was, you'd put it into this little holder thing, wrap the string around it and then you'd pull the string and it would. Oh, and it would shoot out of it, right? It would come off the holder. Come off the holder. Yes, I do remember those. It was kind of structural this time. Yes. Yeah, maybe props was influenced by that toy as well.

I had one. With your major Matt Mason? My major Matt Mason, my old school toys. Yes. Which are new school for Armand. Yes, they are new school. We go to commercial break. We come back.

Otto tries to beam it to space. Is that what he's trying to do? Yeah, I think so. So the explosion, so I'm guessing it does get into space. a little bit? I mean, I'm not, or does it blow up as it's being, I was a little confused here in terms of what happened. Well, he says channel the explosion through the transporter buffer, which is the only explanation I have for why it's sparking. Like when it blows up, the sparks are actually coming from high. Like, it didn't make geographic sense to me. And there should have been more for the amount of

damage that was done to this ship. Yes. Including destroying ration. There just should have been a ton more of explosions and special effects and fireworks. Right. It just seemed two miners, though the damage was only done in the one room. Okay. Yeah, even after the explosion, there should have been the residue. Like, everything should have been black and panels open, and it seemed okay afterwards. I didn't think of it until you bring it up now,

but you're right. I think it should have been a bigger explosion. The systems are failing after this explosion. There's sparks beginning to go off continually all around them. And Oda says we've got to find a place to land and he finds an L-class planet. How convenient right there. Yes. Barely habitable, but it's the closest thing. They might be able to limp their way to the L-class planet and we cut out to space. We see this planet, blue oceans, white clouds. It looks like a beautiful planet. It looked like a beautiful whole planet. It looked like Earth a little bit from the first. Yeah. Yeah. It did. It looked like an M-class planet to me. Not an L-class planet. It did. Not an L. It looked like an M. Very cool shot, though. They approached the planet. Quirk mentions the bomb must have been the Orion Syndicate.

You don't want to mess with them. And that's when Odo says, aha. That's who they are investigating, and we realized that he was playing Cork this whole time. Odo didn't know anything. But he knew that they were, you know, investigating something super secret. So Quark has kind of shown his hand finally here. Yeah. But it took me a minute to catch what the logic, the writer logic was of this. Because as you said, Armin, in the earlier scenes, it didn't seem like Odo was fishing a lot. And that would have helped set this up.

Yes. If he kept trying to get information and not get it. And then finally, Quark says it's the Orion syndicate. Aha! That would have been the... That would have helped. And if Quark had been fishing as well, then just by happenstance saying the Orion

and seeing Odo's response, then Quark indeed also would have gone, oh, that's what this is all about. Because he's still in the dark about why he's on this show. Yeah. He doesn't know. Yeah. Well, Quark is very mad in this scene. He realizes he was tricked by Odo.

He denies working with the Orion Syndicate. He says, I just know someone who knows someone who knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy. It was very funny, which makes sense. That's Quark. He always knows a guy who knows a guy. Exactly. And if he doesn't know,

Rom knows him. Yeah, exactly. But then they crash, they get their, this all happens as they're entering the planet's atmosphere. I loved the shot out of the front window when you're crashing

through the trees and things like that. I thought that was, that was cool shot. Yep. They hit the treetops. There's a blot. blackout, and then we come a little later. We see quarks coming too, and he's cold. We learn the replicators are destroyed.

There's no comms. And Odo says, I've got two rations. One for me, one for you. So either we're going to freeze to death or we're going to starve to death. You pick. Yeah. Does not sound very hopeful at the end of this scene. No.

So we've arrived on the planet, and now I think I must retell my experience on the planet. Or in that location. And that location is Mount Whitney, a 14,500 foot mountain in Central California. And the crew stayed in Lone Pine, which was super cool because Renee loved the fact that he was able to have dinner and hang out with you after shooting because you were on. As did I. As did I. And you did too. So Karen applied my makeup in Lone Pine.

And we put everything on, not the costume, of course, but all the makeup was done at a lower elevator. at basically sea level. We then drove about 40 minutes or so, half hour, 40 minutes, up into the Mount Whitney area. We now were in a much, much higher elevation. I don't remember what the elevation was, but it was much higher. I got out of the van, went to my trailer. It felt a little, little queasy. One of the first shots, I think the first shot that we had to do that first day on location was for me to cross a log a very large log shouldn't be a problem whatsoever um i went to rehearse it i looked at the log and there was water underneath the log this is we see the shot later on in the episode and uh the water is swimming in front of me the log is swimming in front of me

my stomach feels like i'm about to throw up i'm way out of myself and i don't know if i can cross that log. I really don't know if I can do it or not. And I report this to the first AD. I'm having a real problem here. And he sent me to the medic and I gave the medic my symptoms. And he reached into his bag and took out something called emergency. And God bless him, that was a miracle drug. I don't know how it worked, why it worked. But all of my queasiness did. disappeared. And I was very, very grateful. But I didn't understand why I had felt that way.

A little bit later on in the day, I went to craft service. And I saw a bag of potato chips. And it looked like this. Yeah. Right. And I went, oh, that's my problem. Because my makeup is all sealed. It's the head, his head, Robbie.

Because of the change of altitude. he was having so much pressure. The pressure inside the head. Exponentially larger. That's what did it. Wow. Pressure had changed. The pressure inside my head had changed because my neck is all sealed.

Yeah, it's all the way around. It's a perfect seal, isn't it? It's covered. Yeah, it's a perfect seal. And so the pressure inside the head had caused me to have all these symptoms. But the emergency, which I took every day on location, cured all that. That's interesting. but it did.

Interesting. So basically that bag of chips was your head. I mean, the same thing was happening. Yeah. I live in the mountains. We live at over 6,000 feet above sea level. So we're pretty high already. But there's a great trip that I like to take to Mirror Lake, which is nearby.

But that's at about 10 or 11,000 feet. And I can feel the change, even though I'm used to altitude where we live, I can feel the change when I go up to Mirror Lake, that the change in altitude, just affects your whole body. And then many, many, many years later, when I was visiting Zion and knew better, because I had lived in that area a year before, I went up hiking into Zion and fainted from the altitude,

because I was used to Los Angeles sea level pressure and up on Mount Zion up there. It was much less, and I fainted away. Wow. Wow. Pro tip, drink water, don't hike real high and don't have Ferengi makeup squeezing your neck. Or if Karen had applied it at altitude instead of down to the base camp and look at a fine, you would have been fine.

I find it made a difference. Yeah. Did you notice how beautiful the day looked? I mean, they had amazing weather. So it's supposed to be freezing on this L-class planet, Robbie. Absolutely. Just super freezing. So in order to really make that possible, to make it look cold on camera, because the temperatures were as high as, I think, 65 degrees Fahrenheit.

So not icy cold at all. It was the, I guess Chris Crosscove was DP on this one. Yes, he was. He used a super, super wide lens and a filter to give the film an icy look. This is the way. And it did. I felt it looked cold. because of what he shot it.

Yeah. So in the evenings, he used a neutralizing filter to tone down the orangeness of the setting sun, while the telestein transfer, Crosscove told the lab to keep the color spectrum towards blue to enhance the frigid tone that he wanted. Oh, nice. Good on, Chris. Good on Chris. Now, it was enormously warm up there.

Yeah. Enormously warm up there. The entire crew was wearing shorts and T-shirts. Now, you can notice in the picture behind me there, The silver thing that Renee has on was lightweight. It wasn't that hot. But the blue blanket thing behind my head was enormously hot. And we used to complain, whose turn is it to wear this?

Because I don't want to wear it. Oh, that's funny. The opposite of the characters. Yeah, opposite of the characters. Right. We were sweating underneath those costumes. And the blue one that's above my head there was enormously hot. But that in the show, in the episode, is supposed to be the cooler one.

Right? Yeah, the opposite. Which is very funny. And also, Robbie, do you recognize the silver one? Does it ring a bell at all to you? Was that what we wore on Voyager? Okay. So from the episode Timeless, when the opening shot is two individuals wearing those exact same silver parkas looking for Voyager and it's under the ice.

Okay? That's the opening shot of Timeless. So it's Chiquete and Kim. wearing those suits. And if you look at the time, this is season five, which means Voyager would have been, we were three years behind them. So we were season two. So I was asking Armin earlier, I was like, wonder if those were hammy downs for you or for me? And we figured it out these, we wore the hammy downs. So they, we did. They repurposed those for Voyager in the episode Timeless. Oh, interesting. Interesting. We come back after the crash. We come to, we talk about them

starving to death or freezing to death. And then we cut to Jake and Nog's quarters. And Nog is doing chest flies with these high-tech dumbbells. They look cool. Yes, they did. They look very cool. I think you dial in the weight. It changes the weight or something.

You only have one. I like to talk. Well, later on, he hands it to Jake. And when he hands it to him, he's holding it with his finger. So it's super light in real life. I don't know if you noticed that. Maybe he should have. Maybe he should have made it.

Pretended it was a little. Yeah. But maybe he dialed it down to zero. He could have. He could have. Oh, he's doing his chest flies. Jake wakes up late again. We learn he sleeps late.

Jake sees his story laying out on a pad past prologue. It's lying out. And Nag says, oh yeah, I found it when I was cleaning. And we learned that Nog has made some edits. He made edits. He's corrected some spelling and punctuation, changed a few words. Jake is mad. Jake says, do not ever change a writer's words.

That's sacrilegious. It sounds like our writers, the writer says, do not ever say the wrong word. Yeah. I didn't catch that until you just said that, Robbie. That was a sin punishable by death. It really was. We couldn't change anything. Do not change a word.

And Nog sort of gets a little miffed himself. He's like, well, put it away next time and I won't read it. And they're just the beginnings of a little bickering. things are not happiness here in the Nog J. Quarters. And as far as continuity goes, I'm happy about this problem with Jake and his messiness. It's very adolescent behavior, absolutely. But have we ever seen him be this messy? We've seen him in quarters and Cisco shows up after Jake's already gotten there.

We've never seen anything out of place ever. You're right. So it seems quite forced to make him with super, super messy guy. I agree with you. I do want to just mention it was so funny. When Jake says, you can work out for the both of us. That whole dialogue, because nogg's all into fitness. And he says, you don't know what you're missing.

Healthy body, healthy mind. And then Jake's like, no, no, no cliches before breakfast, orange juice, extra large. This dialogue is almost identical between myself and Megan. Megan is always like working out. And I'm like, no, you can work out for both of us. But the difference is that if I order the orange juice, Megan would say that's way too much sugar for you right now. So that's the added comment that Megan would make. But this was literally my life with Megan.

Megan going to work out and doing all the healthy things and me going, no, you can do it for both of us kind of a thing. So it made me laugh a lot. Well, you should work out. Speaking of drinks that Ferengi's ordered, do you remember when Rom ordered earlier? Snail juice, double twice as many snails or something. Twice as many shells. Tis and shells. of shells.

And then when he had the drink in his hand, you could see. No, no, you could see little chunks. You could? Oh, really? I could see little shells chunks. All I saw was the yellow sort of yellowish liquid. All right. Well, we go back to the shuttle.

Odo's trying to repair something. I made a comment, nice lighting. I loved that bright light they brought into this set. Yeah. It made it really feel like you were on some alien planet in a way that it doesn't, off always. You know, sometimes when we go to planets, it feels very, like very familiar lighting. And this felt like an alien planet to me. I thought Chris did a great job. Well, Quark brings in a big, big case. It seems heavy. It does look big. It looks heavy. We learn it's a subspace transmitter.

And Quark says if we can bring it to higher ground, maybe it'll work. Odo asks how high. quirked us some fake math here times this pie. Why do you think it's fake? Then he turns his nose up to look out the window and says up there. That just shows the familiarity between the two actors, myself and Renee. Right. That I can go so far as to move another actor's nose. That would be difficult if you were strangers.

Yes, true. That extremely large subspace transmitter piece, It just made me laugh because I kept thinking of the original cell phones that first came out, those huge blocks that were had a big, I mean, they were so bulky. And I almost feel like because it's shot, this was shot in the 90s, that's again, the bulkiness of what we're used to. Yeah, I think now satellite phones are about, you know, tiny. Well, it looks like Mount Everest that he points him to, but it's actually Mount Whitney.

That's right. It's near a long pine. A little later. Odo's trying to make a poncho out of a blanket when Cork comes in wearing those silver thermals. And Cork has the only survival suit. There's only one of them. But he tells Odo that, you know, all the hiking we have to do to get up there. That'll keep you warm.

He's considerate. He's considered it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want you to get too hot, Odo. Yeah, exactly. Especially.

Well, we see them wearing half of that outfit each. So Quark's wearing the pants with a blanket poncho and the transmitter on his back. And Odo's got the top and his regular bottom. They're sharing. Yes. And each of them has one glove. Is that what he got to? Oh, I didn't catch that.

Sorry. That's very funny. I did not catch that either. But what I love is the fact that we've already established that Odo is now human. So in the grand scheme of story, it's perfect that now he feels every. thing. The cold, the hunger, you name it, he's going through the same thing. Because if he was regular

Odo, you're right. He could have flown the damn thing. He could have been an eagle flying the darn transmitter up to the top of the mountain and it would have been done at the end of episode. So now he has to deal with all the elements which he didn't have to deal with when he was a changeling. Well, Odo's complaining

about the cold. That hasn't changed. He's still complaining a lot. He wishes he were a changeling to fly the transmitter up there. Quark says admit that you always wished you were a solid before Cork says you always wanted to be a solid

now you're a solid, admit it and he said I saw you were jealous of mourn in the bar you had your feelings for Kira whatever that's about so he brings up all of these things and Odo just denies it and that's when quark slips and falls and they agree

to switch clothes and take turns carrying this transmitter. I wrote down Bickersons at the end of this. So this is a harmless little Bickersons moment. Waiting for Goddow. Yes. Yes, because Vladimir and estrogen, they bicker all the time. Through the whole play.

But there are modifications. Yes. Yes. Well, we cut back to the station and a corridor. There's Miles and Nog. And Miles, as we talked about before, is the only one that says, good job. Yeah. Yeah.

They're talking Starfleet shop and Miles thinks he's doing a great job. And we also learn in this scene that Nog is ambitious. He doesn't want to be a customs inspector. He's like, thanks, but, you know, it's a great job for a customs inspector. I don't want to, I want more than that. So we know, you know, it's a nice little moment of Starfleet and. And thank God someone appreciates Nog. Yes, yes.

Thank God. somebody someone can see the change in Nag and go nice you know this is great it was refreshing for sure nogg goes inside the the quarters he shares with Jake and there are clothes and junk everywhere I've never seen Jake be this messy clothes hanging off the replicator like it's it's over the top it's messy forced for sure yeah yeah nogg finds a disaster inside Jake's got his feet up he's reading And Nog is just furious.

And he orders Jake to clean up while he goes and get some food at the replomat. And they fight. They start to have it out. They're not just the Bickersons. They have a very... Heated back and forth. Heeded back and forth. Well, he says he's going to move out, doesn't he?

Yeah. He says he's out. No, not yet. Not yet. Not in this scene yet. Okay. Not quite yet. But this is a real fight.

It's going to get even more personal later. But so we've got the Bickersen. up on the mountain. We got the roommates fighting. Lots of conflict here. Double Biggersons. Double Biggersons. Back on the mountain forest,

Odo's carrying the transmitter this time. Quark's wearing the jacket. So some time has passed. But quark is fading. He says he hasn't had a beetle or slug juice in days. Doesn't he, he looks at something that he's a beetle. It's a stone.

Yeah. And he's like, and it's not a beetle. It's stone. Odo says it's about six more hours to the top, he estimates. I don't think he says six. He says it's a few more hours. A few more hours.

Then Odo qualifies and says six. Yeah. And then Quark says that he can do six hours, but definitely not seven. And a moment later, they come over a peak. And Odo says, forget about six hours, more like six days. Six days. It's a long ways away. And we were talking about lighting before.

There's nothing that Chris could have done here. That shot just makes it look like a beautiful day. It does. It's a postcard picture of some location. And it just looks beautiful. And despite whatever filters Chris put in there, it just looks like it's a warm day, which it was. Right.

Totally. It looks warm there. And I go back to that vis-effect shot of the planet that looked a lot like Earth. Yes. There was oceans and water. And if it's such a cold planet, it feels like there would be ice. Ice everywhere, yes. And grayness. I mean, it's, it's raining outside here in L.A. It was. And this is grayness that they couldn't get because the days were just picture perfect that week. Well, that was beautiful. It was beautiful to look at. Anyway, they've got six days or more or whatever to hike this peak. We cut to kind of heading down.

downhill now. They're going into a valley and Quark is counting every step because he wants to know how many steps however many steps he takes down, he's going to have to take that many back up. So you're doing a lot of math in this episode. Well, as, as Nog says earlier, the Ferengi are very good with figures. It's ironic and charming to me that when I get into tough situations, the way I get through them, now I'm admitting something personal, but the way I get through them is to just take a deep breath and say, this will be over. I just have to get through it. And so I start counting.

I don't count footsteps, but I go, one, two, three. I just, if I, I know eventually if I get not to any particular number, but if I just count, whatever is terrible that's happening to me will eventually be over. And I just count. If you've seen me on a plane where I have a panic attack. you'll just see me counting. Really? Oh,

wow. So it's ironic, and I never told anyone this before, except my close friends, so the writers wouldn't have known, but this is exactly the formula that I use when I'm in a similar situation. That's funny.

It's funny. Maybe because of this episode, whoever put in that technology onto, I guess, Apple watches and iPhones that count your steps, maybe it was from this episode. So they're just watching this point.

Look at that. He's counting his steps. I'm going to put that into this technology right there. Yeah. Well, he's counting the steps. Odo is gloating about how much he can't wait for the grand jury to nail Quark finally. Quark tells Odo that the Orion syndicate tried to kill him. And he's not a suspect.

He's a witness. And he says, Odo, you failed. This is your whole theory is wrong. And Odo is shocked that he's wrong. he thought he had busted quark you know otto says you know i couldn't join this syndicate this crime group uh because i was a failed businessman i'm a nobody and cork says you've been trying to uh you know you've been trying to catch me for years and so who's a failure really odo so you sort of turn it you flip it on odo the logic here yeah you know who's the failure i'm a failed businessman but i'm not a part

of this crime syndicate and you have spent your whole life trying to catch me and you've failed Odo. The last 10 years of your life trying to catch a nobody is what his line is. He does flip it. It's very funny. It is interesting to me that the writers recognize the fact that all of the characters that we usually meet on the show have a poor estimation of quark. And so Odo just naturally assumes the quark's at fault here.

He always thinks the worst of him, although they have a relationship. But he just thinks the worst, it has to be quark's fault. And it is a flaw in his perception of Quark and perhaps of other people as well. Yeah. Yeah, well, it's part of the opportunity of this episode to show that people are capable of more than we give them credit court for and if I may and I'm going to

way too deep into the weeds here and I think that perception that because it's not just quark that they have a poor idea of it's also of Nag we've already spoken about that and it also includes

ROM as well so I would say it's a racial prejudice that it's the Ferengi are somehow less than perfect I've spoken about this before, but this was something that that I became aware of as I was shooting the show, that this racial prejudice, that certain races were esteemed and certain races were looked down upon. Yeah. But the flip side argument is, as far as Rom is concerned, he did have the worst shift in engineering, but then he got promoted. So there is recognition of his.

worth and that how good he is at doing his job. So I feel like there is some elevation of Ferengi when it comes to Ram's case, not so much quark and nog, but definitely Rom. But when we get to the scene between Avery and Rom talking about their sons, they're still, in my opinion, and God knows, I may be reading into it because of all the things that I went through. Yeah. But it just seems there's a sort of Avery, excuse me, Cisco, not Avery. Right. Cisco slightly looking down on Rom as though, you know, he's less than perfect. Okay.

Okay. Which he wouldn't do with Kira. No. No, he wouldn't do with Wharf. Yeah. Wouldn't do with Miles O'Brien? Right. Yeah.

Okay. Now, Miles is another human. Human. So I'm talking about other species. Right. Yeah. Some are esteemed. Some are looked down upon.

Right. Yeah. Well, now we are in the replemate. This is where ROM orders the snail juice, the double snail juice with extra shells. And before you start on that, sorry. Yeah. This, I think, was a miss moment by both Max and Alan. He says, give me a snail juice.

Thinks about it for nanosecond. Says, make it a double. Why? Why does he ask, make it a double? Because he knows what he's about to talk to Avery about, Cisco about. And if I were to read it, directing it. I would have included a look to Cisco, which isn't there in the episode, to go, I really need fortification. I need a double. Make it a double.

That's an opportunity. Yeah, 100%. And I think they missed that in the script. It's not in the script, but that's something I think I would have recognized and said, listen, Max Kudenshik, look at him, realize you need more than the regular, you need a double. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. great great observation so rom does sit down with cisco he asks uh about nog he says you know nog seems a little strange to me lately rom even says i thought he might be a changeling um so i drew blood while he was sleeping to check so far so good and he's got the vial of blood with he's still holding it it's still good it's been eight hours it's still good and shaking it to see if there's a change right yeah but it's still funny it's still funny it's still good it's still good

that the change would have happened way earlier than that, right? But he's still holding it. He's still holding it under that vial of blood, which Ferengi have red blood we learn in this. Yeah. I don't know if I, I guess we've seen Ferengi blood before, but yeah,

I don't know if we have. And we see it when you're injured, when Quark is injured, we see some red nicks and bruises. Well, Cisco kind of defends Nog here a little bit. He says that you're in the academy will change you. It would have been nice if we had seen Cisco impressed by that earlier, though. Yes.

Because then he sees something he admires in Nog, the change, the responsibility. That's something valuable for Jake. That's where they're going to get in the scene. But if he had seen it, he could kind of put that together. Jake needs that. Anyway. And if I may, I think that's what the writers intended in that first scene between Cisco and Nog. I think they wanted him to see it.

but because, maybe not because, but perhaps, because there was no writer on the set to inform Cisco, this is what our intention is. Avery just went back to his usual relationship with Nog, because Nog's not been on the set for a couple of weeks now, and just went back to his default position on Nog. And I don't think he realized because I think he should have recognized that in that first scene. Yeah. Yeah, I do too. I think it would have helped this moment. Because Rahm is saying, I don't know what's going on with Nog.

And Cisco says, you know, I don't know what's going on with Jake. He's going through a phase two. He's messy. He's undisciplined. And maybe if they could get them in the same room, they could learn a little from each other. So this is definitely a scene that has the opportunity to say, look, the Ferengi and Nogg's growth is something that we can learn from. And maybe, you know, Nog can learn how to lighten up a little from Jake. So I feel like it could have been that idea could have landed better if everyone had been noticing Nog's growth.

Right. And if in prior episodes, if we'd seen Jake been a little bit more messy in the quarters, then we could see how this is a progression. An ongoing problem. An ongoing problem that as a father, he couldn't fix because he didn't have the time. But perhaps Nog can fix it. Yeah. I did like when Rom got very offended by the word untidy.

He said, Nog's moved back in with me and it's horrible because he put me on report the other day, said my toolkit was untidy. That's the exact word he used. Untidy. Very funny. Very funny. Because I would assume that Rom is very tidy. He is. Because if you look at his room, it's super tidy. Everything we've seen in that opening scene when you bring the root beers, there's nothing out of place in Rom's quarters. It's very tidy. Well, we go back to the mountainside. Odo and Quark have slept by some big rocks. Odo wakes up. But Quark doesn't wake up. He's out. Odo goes over to try to wake him up. He won't wake up.

This is a scary moment. I mean, we think Quark may be dead. Maybe he died in his sleep or froze to death. Cork finally, sorry, Odo finally hits Quark. Slaps him to wake him up. And I like that. Stop hitting me. Stop hitting me.

But, Odo says, I thought you were dead. Yes. But when Odo hits, when Renee hits Armin, he hits him on top of the head. And I think they just use that audio from whatever they, you know, filmed that day. Because it sounds like he's hitting the top of a prosthetic head is what it sounds like, yes. It makes that rubber smacking. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I thought, man, they should have fixed that in post. Why did they leave that in like that? Give it a little more of a solid mac. Yeah, not like it's hollow. I mean, it just, it pulled me out for a split second. Yeah, it does sound like it's hitting the rubber percentage. You agree? Yeah, I totally agree. And I will tell you something else. When he smacked the top of my head, it hurt. It looked like it hurt. Yeah, I mean, he assumed because of the rubber, it was not going to hurt. So he just full out hit me. I'm supposed to be asleep. And I go, that hurts.

Wow. That was a real. That was a real reaction. Yeah. Yeah. Well, think about it. You are the bag of chips inside that head right now. And he's hitting on top of it. You're going to feel it. So, yeah, it was, yeah. But, you know, we're friends. I can deal with it. Yeah. The only thing they didn't do in this episode, which I've seen them do in other Star Trek episodes when it's super cold, you pull out your phaser and you heat up a rock. And the rock gets all heated and you use that as a fireplace and warmth.

They didn't do that once in here, but I'm guessing maybe you guys didn't even have phasers, maybe. But work doesn't have a phaser. I don't know about Odo. Odo doesn't like weapons. So it's possible he didn't have a weapon either. Okay. Got it. Yeah.

But I will say this. Another fault, a quibble. As you said, Robbie, when Quark doesn't respond, it's possible that he may have frozen to death. That's what I thought. And that's what it looks like. But I would have, Karen, I'm a huge fan of my makeup person, Karen Westerfield.

And I wish she had made me look a little bit more blue. A little more frost-bitten kind of look. A little more frost-bitten, a little bit paler. so that it you know I don't think she changed anything as far as my pigmentation you had some no you had some nix and cuts yeah we had some mix and cuts but nothing as far as the pigmentation was concerned oh that would be interesting and and I would have liked that to indicate that he's getting frostbitten yeah well he's he says his body's shutting down he can't hear out of one of his ears and he's dying and there's not enough to eat.

And there's no physical representation of that. We have to play that, which is fine. Right. We could have used some help from makeup. Yes. It's quarks turn to carry the transmitter again. And then we cut to a bit of a time lapse and we see that they've been climbing for a while and now Odo has it, it's his turn.

So they've traded this back and forth. They're tired. They're getting tired. They bicker. This is the big, I hate you, see. They, I hate this about you, I hate that about you. Lots of insults. They just start bickering.

You call Odo a fascist in this one. This is when you start wrestling and, it's just, yeah, this is the wrestling scene. Freak fraud, fascist failure. It's very alliterated. A lot of FFs there. Yes. My quibble with the writing at this point in earlier, it's a little too much. It's a little too much.

Bickering, give us a moment where they don't bicker. Give us something so that when they start to bicker, it makes a difference. It's a little too much of the same seasoning over and over and over again. It's lovely to see them bicker. I mean, we're very good at bickering, but it would have been nice to have another color besides that. Now, I looked through the script and there just wasn't a lot of opportunities for that, but I don't think we even thought about that. And again, it would have been nice if the writers had given us something to,

change that bickering a little so that you know that that we could appreciate or at least or at least be struck by something the other person said you know you're a fascist I call him and and it's until a moment later that some of that affects him but I would have liked to have seen some of that give and take on the camera more I agree with you swapping big insults back to each other I agree with you. Often in these kinds of stories where two characters who didn't get along in some way are faced with their mortality, and they both kind of open up some vulnerabilities individually that makes them understand each other and become a little closer. And I wish that Quark had, in facing mortality, had an opportunity to open up some vulnerabilities. You do a little bit. You do. I don't think Odo does.

I agree with you. And I'm glad you said it not me because I wasn't sure. But yes, I agree with you. If Odo had expressed some vulnerabilities here, he's thinking he's going to die to or whatever it was, that you could have added that color that you're talking about, another seasoning, another complication and made it a more interesting kind of opportunity for these characters. Right. I think one of the major flaws in this episode is that we never really think we're going to die. The actors don't ever really think we're going to die. The characters mouth it.

They say it. But I don't think the actors ever played it. That we were actually – and the audience must know they're not going to kill off too soon. They're just not going to do that. So where's the threat? The threat would have been in the very – not the threat, but the – interesting thing would have been the very thing you just said, Robbie, is to see the vulnerability in the face of death. And I think Quark has a little bit of that right before he decides to make the

final push. Right, right. I think he does. And but I think that I would have liked to see more of that for Quark and some of that from Odo, anything would have been nice. Yeah, because for Odo, who is now a solid, this is a different situation. Yeah. The idea that he, He's grown up all of his life not having to worry about about hunger, about cold, about anything, about escaping out of difficult situations. All of a sudden, he's faced with that. That must be a tremendous thing to all of a sudden come face to face with. He should be more freaked out by the whole thing, the whole situation.

But he's one of our heroes. We can't do that. But at the end of the wrestling, Odo does end up breaking his leg. And that shot of the broken leg, I wrote down on a number. note. I said it looks like an NFL injury when someone's, yeah, something gets bent the wrong way. I'm shocked that that didn't get a 15 rating for the UK where they can't even let us hear. In the UK, you can't even hear bones cracking. And I'm thinking a leg that's twisted backwards, it's pretty gruesome. I think it was too much, honestly. Yeah. Am I right? It's like, I don't know if you should.

Yeah. And if that's, if that was the injury. And if, as you say, Armin, C-Corp, Odo now is feeling human, you know, is experiencing human physical pain and all that. He should have been screaming and screaming his bloody head off. Yes. In shock. Yeah. You know, like delirious, like imagining, hallucinating or something. Because that was a really gruesome injury, the broken leg.

Well, there's a little time lapse. Quark has managed to put a splint together with branches. and also to make kind of a gurney, to drag him up the mountain. And Odo doesn't think he can do it. And Cork says, watch me. And we cut to a wide shot of you pulling him up on this stretcher, pulling him up the mountain, which was very... And that was real exertion. I remember that.

Really? He was heavy going up those... And God knows what the stones must have done to René's back. But I remember that was heavy. And that's fine. I'm glad about that. I'm glad that because that's, you know, then I'm actually, I'm actually doing something real thing. Yes. Yeah. Very heroic. A little more time passes. We see Quark is struggling to get over rocks and trees. Quark is a hero here. I think this little montage of you pulling him up was great. This completely, for me, made Quark a hero.

Right. So, and I agree with you 100% and I'm grateful for it. But I asked my myself why why did they make Quark a hero it makes more sense he should in the scheme of things it's better for him to be pulling Odo than Odo pulling him what was the reason the inspiration for making him a hero when he's been such a near-do-well for all of these seasons well maybe subconsciously they felt he has been picked on for so much that we're going to give him the hero status in one episode and Let him have the glory finally that he deserves. Maybe that was it.

Who knows, right? I totally get that, and thank you for that. I really do think that's probably the thinking behind it. But then I ask myself, and you guys can't possibly know this, in future episodes, things go back to what they were. Really? See, that's a shame because your show, because it had that serialized storytelling, could have built on top of and continued to evolve characters. more than most any Star Trek show of that time. Yeah.

I mean, progress tracks with every other character but the Frangis, it seems. And it's like, what's going on here? It's a little weird. Well, you are a hero pulling, you know, this whole montage. Thank you, climbing up. It was cinematic. It was heroic. It was beautiful.

But then you finally collapse. You fall down face in the dirt. Do you remember shooting that? I do. I do remember the face in the dirt. And again, it was real. However, not a however. It was real and that was good.

No, it didn't hurt. It was all fine. However, two things, in other words to this scene. But facing the dirt, they took a shot. They took a take where my face is in the dirt. And besides the dirt, I'm very sure I saw this. I see a fly in the shot. Oh, I didn't catch it.

I think I'm pretty sure. I looked at it twice. I'm pretty sure. dirt but I thought it was a fly and I thought wait a second they just told us there's no larva on this on this planet there's nothing to eat and I thought if it is a fly they really screwed themselves over here but some somebody would have to go back and reaffirm the fact that that I saw a fly or didn't see a fly one of the I didn't catch it I didn't catch it but I think it is fly yeah on the day of filming Armin if you'd notice that wild

you're filming, you could have played with it. It said, food like that as it flew past you. I could. If I'd been smart and I just am not smart. Anyway, but I want to talk about something else when we get to, which is, I think, the next scene. Okay. All right. I did like your line reading when you say, my muscles won't work anymore.

I loved your line reading, man. Is it stretched out like that at the end? Yes. It reminds me of an acting exercise. exercise. It's a, I don't know if it was a Meisner exerciser, but it was an acting exercise where you'd sing, Mary had a little lamb, but you'd sing it one syllable at time. M. And you'd hold, or you'd take a line and you just hold it out and you'd be playing the emotional value of whatever the acting. Right. It was about. Yeah. But you'd be doing it with kind of gibberish or one syllable. Yes. And something about the, vocalization of that emotion without words having to you know clarify it just a sound was really

cathartic as an actor and it made me realize you don't need like the way that language is expressed doesn't have to be clear it has to be emotionally connected and it was just a great acting exercise and that line delivery reminded me of that it was like the way that you said it and drawing out that syllable more was so expressive much more than the definition of the words if that makes sense.

Yeah. Yeah, it was great. Well, Odo says he mentioned Cisco would not give up here and so he starts to crawl towards the transmitter and pushes it uphill. He pushes it uphill and how much does it

weigh when he pushes it uphill? And he's not the only one. I've done it in the episode. In excuse me, in scenes before this, it didn't weigh very much. In real life, it didn't win it. And it certainly looks like that when he pushes it. And the times before, when I've been carrying it, what it seems like what it was, just a bunch of balsa wood.

And I'm sure they made it light because they knew we had to carry it. Right. And so they made it, they've been kind to the actors and didn't make it very heavy. But I wish they had made it heavy because then I think that would have added to the problem of getting up that hill. Yes. Just subtly, you know that that box is just not very happy. Right.

Well, Otto tries to push this very lightweight box up the hill, this featherweight box, but he poops out. Yeah. He poops out. Can't do it. And then Quark starts to ruminate about ROM, about the bar, about Nog. This is the moment of vulnerability I was talking about. Yeah.

This is a great moment. I wish there had been more of these moments in this story. but it gets him emotional and he gets up and he decides to go it alone and he's going to get this thing up to the top and Odo wishes him luck. He says good luck. I like that last line of corks before he leaves Odo. Try not to break your other leg while I'm gone. That one made me laugh pretty hard even though it's kind of gruesome. Yeah.

And they realize, I mean, they realize that they have to separate now. It's now do or die. he can't pull the both up the hill they have to separate and i wish we had had a line or two to that yeah where they could have said in a sense goodbye oh yeah yeah i can't pull you anymore i know you can't i'm going to have to go it alone as if this was a a final goodbye forever right right that would have been so good i didn't think of that armament but that's exactly what this episode needed. The arc would have been bicker, bicker, bicker, bicker, bicker, to finally this moment, which was, you can see the relationship, you can see the affection they have for each other,

despite they won't admit to it, and it comes out here. And that's what happens oftentimes in extreme moments, things that you wouldn't ever say because you would want your ego to be dented that way. And you say things because you know it's the last time you're going to see this person. Well, he heads up to be a hero. We go to Jake's quarters next. Cisco surprises Jake. He says, Jake, you know, regulations require two occupants in this room.

So you're going to have to move back in with me or. And he calls for Nog and Cisco says they have to make this work. And he orders Nog. He says, as the captain, I'm telling you you have to make a work. And as your father, Jake, I'm telling you you need to make this work. And then Cisco leaves with the two boys there. And then we see Jake and Nag both each making it a little effort to compromise to see things the other way. You see the beginnings of, you know, Jake is willing to clean up.

And Nag says, no, no, we don't have to clean up right now. Why don't we go play some Domjot? Well, actually, Jake says you want to go to the gym. And then Knox says, no, let's do Domjot. So that's nice, Elaine. Yeah. I would have, again, quibbles, I'm so sorry, I would have liked that change in both of them to have taken a little longer to get to. It was pretty quick.

You know, one thing do you have to live together, it's another that they're going to change their ways completely. Right, yeah. I would have liked a little transition there. And I just want to go back to Avery. When he says, I'm your captain, I thought that is a perfect reading of him. he was perfectly military there. I thought, nice, nice reading, Avery. Yeah.

Yeah, it was good. I agree with you to this scene. The makeup between Jaganag happened a little too quickly for me. Cork is on a cliff side. We see him climbing on this cliff. I thought that was a cool shot. And then we cut over to Odo. Odo calls, no answer.

And he records his last words, basically. Yeah. He's recording. a, you know, chief of security log, final entry. So this is kind of that moment you were talking about,

Armin. But he says Quark didn't make it. I can't say I'm not surprised. He does suggest that Quarks remains be valued and that he get his last wishes that he'd be desiccated and, you know, qualifies it, but at least he's thinking of his friend,

Quark, at the end. Mm-hmm. And as he's giving his last will and test, and last final words. He gets being it. He gets transported out. We cut into a transporter bay. And Odo is being helped by Bashir, getting some medical treatment.

He's going to be okay. Wharf and Dax are there. They say quark was, they found quark on top of a mountain slumped over the transmitter. But he sent out the signal. And Odo says, oh, he made it? And they, Dax says, well, if it was. It wasn't for his signal. We never would have found you.

It looks like he saved both of your lives. Oh, those responses. I was afraid you'd say that. Right. So here's my huge quibble. Yes. You've been told it's days. They've been days on the shuttle getting to wherever they are.

Now, granted, a spaceship can, you know, starship can travel perhaps faster than a shuttle. But even so, when gets the feeling that it's only been at the, at the, the most couple hours that the signal has been going out and they're the our heroes have gotten there in no time they've already picked up quark uh they've beamed down to the planet um they've rescued him now they're rescuing odo it just i thought it took days that's all yeah yeah this this is why i made a big deal about days at the beginning of uh chat yeah understood that's a quibble, but, you know, 42 minutes of screen time. You can't fit all that in, unfortunately.

So, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they definitely would have to lose some other stuff to try and make that story make sense. Right. Right. But our final scenes in the medical bay, side by side, nice shot from Alan Craker here. Quark wakes Odo up. He's very proud. Cork says, remember when I told you how much I hated you and you told me how you hated me?

And Odo remembers all of this vividly. and he said I just quark says I just want you to know I meant every word of it and Odo response so did I yes it's great and then they laugh yes which belies what they've just said and I'm a little disappointed in the editorial department because I distinctly remember and again it's a matter of time but I distinctly remember that the laugh went on for a lot longer than is in the episode which I think granted they couldn't do it because of the time but would have been a much nicer ending because they just have a laugh and then it's and then the credits roll yeah and it took us a little longer to get to the laugh in i would say most of the takes okay that we thought about it about that

we hated each other we hated it and we're just thinking about it we're thinking about it and i think that's a i wish that they had done that that's too bad yeah i was disappointed that this scene seem to go back to nothing's changed. And there should be an understanding that this is, this has changed us a bit. We're going to keep our game going, but this is, this change is meaningful. Right. So really, Armin, how many more seconds would they have needed to get that full laugh in and build up to the laugh? Another 10 seconds? That's a Robbie question. So he says 10, okay. Maybe 10. But I just remember when I watched it again recently, I went, I thought it was much longer than that. I thought that because that's what I remember and that you know there was an

enormous bond between Renee and I as we were laughing there was just this incredible you know we're not only laughing at the what the characters were going through but we're laughing at the fact that we who are such good friends have to do this that we had each other you know there was that at least in me I don't know about Renee but but in me I I felt the dichotomy of what was real and what was fiction. Yeah. That's too bad. They could have shaved a few seconds off here or there in earlier scenes and given you guys

that full moment, which would have been a great, great button. And looking through the script, I see that there was a scene. I didn't notice it until just now, as we've been talking. There was a scene that they cut out, which had another guest star that never appeared. Oh, really? So maybe they did shave some stuff. It's Jake and a character named Linnae. and I didn't read it.

I just saw it as I was flipping through the script. It says Jake is throwing a house-waring party. It's a pretty happening affair. The guests are a mix of Bajoran and human teenagers, mostly about Jake's age. So obviously they cut that out. Wow. Now, I don't know which edition of the script I have.

This might be an early scene that they cut out in the blue pages. My lesson for this episode is you are capable of more than you think, even things that don't feel natural to you. I think for Quark, for sure, he was capable of more that doesn't feel natural to be heroic or sacrificial, but he was able to do it. And Jake's able to be a little cleaner and Nog's able to lighten up and Odo's able to, I don't know what. But that was my lesson.

Okay, I like it. Armand, what is yours? For me, this episode is about relationships. And what I wrote down was, relationships that matter are all about weathering the peaks and the explosions. In other words, for a relationship to be valuable, one must enjoy the peak moments when things are perfect and somehow get through the moments that are not so good and move on to the to the better side. I like it. I like it too.

Mine is that old saying, keep calm and keep on, which is pretty much what Cork does to get to the summit. Our Patreon poll winner for theme slash lesson slash more of this episode as submitted by Nicole Bredel is true friendship overcomes the hardest of obstacles and the most precarious of situations. For it to work, you have to set your personal feelings aside and compromise. Kind of what Armin was saying in a way. Right. And certainly that's indicative of the relationship between Jake and not. As well, yes, correct.

Yeah, exactly. Yep. All righty, we have come to the end of our podcast. We want to thank Armin for joining us again. Thank you, Armine. Pleasure. Join us next time when we will be recapping and discussing the episode Rapture with Tear Fair. And for all of our Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material.

Everyone else, we'll see you next time. Bye. Bye-bye.