The Delta Flyers - The Chute

Episode Date: March 8, 2021

The Delta Flyers is a weekly Star Trek: Voyager rewatch and recap podcast hosted by Garrett Wang and Robert Duncan McNeill. Each week Garrett and Robert will rewatch an episode of Voyager starting at the very beginning. This week’s episode is The Chute. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.The Chute:Lt Paris and Kim are suspected of being members of the Open Sky terrorist group, and Neelix is asked to use his ship on a special mission.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, Kelton Rochelle, Liz Scott, Sarah A Gubbins, Ann Marie Segal, Jason M Okun, Marie Burgoyne, Chris Knapp, Michelle Zamanian, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Matthew Gravens, Brian Barrow, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, James Zugg, Mike Gu, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Vikki Williams, William McEvoy, Holly Smith, Jesse Noriega, Dominic Burgess, Amber Eason, Lucas Shuck, PJ Tomas, and Nicholaus RussellAnd our Producers:Chris Tribuzio, Jim Guckin, Steph Dawe Holland, James Amey, Katherine Hedrick, Eleanor Lamb, Richard Banaski, Eve England, Ann Harding, Laura Swanson, Luz R, Josh Johnson, Chloe E, Kathleen Baxter, Craig Sweaton, Nathanial Moon, Warren Stine, York Lee, Mike Schaible, Kelley Smelser, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Matthew Cutler, Joshua L Phillips, Barbara Beck, Elaine Ferguson, Mary O'Neal, Aithne Loeblich, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Heidi Mclellan, Megan Hurwitt, Dat Cao, Cody Crockett, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Robert Hess, Cindy Ring, Andrei Dunca, Daniel Owen, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, Ming Xie, Mark G Hamilton, Heather Chappelle, Kevin Selman, Heather Choe, Kelly Havlik, Richard Sandnesaunet, Justin Weir, Joseph Michael Kuhlmann, and Kevin Hooker 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 co-host, Mr. Robert Duncan McNeil with the Voyager Bridge background. Yes, I do. I've got, I'm trying to sit kind of where I would be sitting, but. It's, you know, a little, the perspective's off. But I wore a matching sweater with the carpet, so. Is that? You know, I want the sweater to match the carpet, as they say. You're really going to go down that avenue right now. I just said the sweater matches that carpet of the bridge. Yeah, but you know what you were inferred.

You know, you know the hidden message, the hidden meaning. I played the rascal. Tom Paris on Star Trek Voyager, I get to make carpet and sweater jokes. So when you get rascally, can I, can I refer to you as, can I say, the rascal? Yeah, or I can say, are you being season one and two, Tom Paris right now? This will be my way of saying you're being a bit rascally. So what's new in the world of McNeil? Well, I'm finishing, getting close to the end of my Turner & Hooch, you know, producing and directing. I'm directing two of these last three episodes. So it's keeping me very busy doing a big car chase sequence in this episode. So that's fun because we get

what's called a Russian arm, which is the kind of usually a Mercedes or a Porsche with a camera, remote camera on the top that drives around for all the sliding and the car chase. And we have a drone chasing and we've got a T-bone crash. It's a big stunt sequence. It'll be fun. So that's exciting reminds me of all the stunt sequences you did on chuck you know you guys had a lot of stuff there big stuff for tv right for tv that was big yeah and we were kind of a low budget show so it was it always had to be very inventive what we did with stunts got you now here's the other question so then you're going to go on hiatus right then i go on hiatus and i go back to utah to my new home and uh and also i'm getting married.

Getting married. I know. I know. You're all over the place. I'm a very busy man. You're a very busy man. You have so much on your plate. And I still find time to match the sweater to the carpet.

Okay. Are all your vehicles with you in Vancouver right now? Or do you have that many vehicles? I have liquidated. I have liquidated a lot of vehicles. What I own now is the RV, my motor home, which I love. and my Tesla Model 3, 2018, Tesla Model 3. That's it.

I sold both my motorcycles. I sold my Explorer. I sold my Mini Cooper Countryman. I have no, I'm very, I have a motorhome and a Tesla. That's it. You're kind of footloose and fancy free. I need to know which model, model three do you have? There's a long distance one, a performance.

What do you have? I have the dual motor. so it's yeah a little more performancey all-wheel drive good better traction the dual motor model three yes with the long distance the bigger battery range the autopilot yeah i kind of got all the perks on that one so at the time so that's the faster zero to 60 because you you know depending on which model you have a slower zero to 60 number or a little faster it was the fastest at the time there has been a software upgrade that you can put purchase that they'll download the software upgrade for like three or four or five thousand dollars

i forget what it is and it will take it from like the three point seven seconds to two point nine or something i could get it to go faster if i want to spend a few thousand dollars but it's fast enough for me it's super fast i'm not a three some three point something seconds in zero to 60 is fast it's super fast you feel it that's already yeah it's it's light speedish in a way for us humans, right? So I think that's good enough. It's great. Yeah, I was just looking at the Tesla website.

They have a plaid model. Like, you can get a Model S plaid plaid plus or whatever, and it's less than two seconds to zero to 60. Oh, my God. Just blows my mind. I mean, I think accidents will be much more prevalent with people with that model. I mean, if you're going that fast, hmm. That's very fast.

I don't know. All right, this week's episode, it's the best. big Tom and Harry episode. Yes, it is. The shoot. I'm so excited. I was waiting for you to say it. I was like, say the title.

Say it. Say the title. Why isn't he say the title? I don't. Yeah, the shoot. Yeah, I apologize, everybody. If I'm a little bit slower, I had a nice fall in the ice about a week ago and smack my head really hard.

So if my synapses aren't firing and I can't come up with titles or names as well as I normally do, I'm going to blame it. on the ice is what I'm going to say. But the shoot. On the ice. Blame it on the ice. Blame it on the ice. I felt like that was a cue for a song or something.

I feel like we need to add more song to our podcast. It's just something that people really enjoy music and song. And you're good at just coming up with random lyrics out of the bullet. I'm a creative songwriter. I just kind of, you know, riff. Yeah. You riff on it. For sure.

which is I riff on on the songs I riff all on the songs I make up all the words and sing them all day long that's why I love to sing it's one of my favorite things okay so you know Robbie

after we after we upload this particular episode if we lose a large percentage of subscribers we will stop the singing immediately I don't think so though I think we're going to gain people. I think people are going to be excited about first.

For the songwriting. Yeah. Yes. All right. Well, we're going to podcast. I'm a new podcast songwriting with Robbie Duncan McNeil. McNeil. Yeah.

Okay. I don't think that would. I don't think. Yeah. You guys know our normal format. So Robbie and I are going to head off and watch the show. We haven't seen this episode in quite some time. And we're going to come back and discuss the shoot.

All right. See you soon. See you soon. all right so we are back from watching the shoot how exciting was that Robbie I'm going to change the name of the episode from the shoot to the sweat I know it was very we were very sweaty I mean I think I at one point I said to Rebecca I was like I wonder if I was really sweating or if or if that was like makeup because sometimes it look like they had sprayed us down with, like, they used to use those Evian bottles, like the

mister, and they would spray us down when we were supposed to be sweaty. So I think that's what they did. I do recall exactly what they did. They did spray us down. It wasn't necessarily with water. It was like a mixture of like glycerin, something else that could, that wouldn't evaporate as quickly as water, right? So with the hot studio lights, if they had just did an Evian mister, that would have evaporated so quickly. So they used some chemical form of water mix with something else which produced our fake sweat.

It would look good. It looked good. The whole set looked good. The whole episode looked really good. Les did a great job directing. Yeah. The lighting was really dramatic. Lots of shadows and lots of, yeah, dramatic lighting.

Yeah. Definitely. Let's start off with our haiku and our limerick. Our poetry synopsie. okay yes here's my haiku um very impressionistic you may say okay here we go so a haiku five syllables seven syllables five syllables so here we go acraterians tom and harry in prison the manifesto I'm in Harry in prison, the manifesto.

I think there's so much to capture in this episode that I had to get the man. It's difficult. So now you know, now that you've done haiku for a few episodes, it's not as easy as you would think. It's actually, I think the limerick gives you a little bit more freedom to describe what's happening because the haiku is so brief that you're only able to get the essence and the essence, you know, Archerians already takes up five. syllables itself, right? Acreterians. One word, bam. Acreterians.

Yep, that's right. That's all done. Okay, here we go. Straight from Ireland. Here's your limerick. All right. The shoot limerick. Tom and Harry are accused of a terrorist plot. To a dark, dank prison they are sent to rot. Tom loses a knife bout. Harry finds a way out.

Janeway saves the boy's jackpot. nice nice all righty buddy that was good i like a limerick they're fun can i just first talk about how difficult it was to shoot this episode we were on stage 16 and they built that entire prison set on stage 16 yeah and they included a lot of um they brought in a lot of dirt and just there was just a lot of just stuff in the air like dirt and residue and dust um they pumped in the fake smoke which you know back in the day i don't think they use the smoke that they used with us any longer i think that stuff is so toxic that oil-based smoke they would pump in there right so i my recollection was that four fifths of the cast and crew developed bronchitis wow from this

episode. I got sick as a dog. I know other, maybe you didn't. Maybe you, uh, maybe you, uh, maybe you avoided the bronchitis bug. I do remember, I, now that you mentioned that, I do remember an episode where everybody got sick. I also remember an episode, uh, sidebar where I got the chicken pox right, right around the holidays. Oh my gosh. I guess I, I thought I had chicken pox. I'd never had the chicken pox i guess it was right around christmas like the week before christmas i was not feeling well oh because my kid taylor got chickenpox at school brought it home i guess i'd never had it i got it but i'd been to work feeling kind of rotten and i guess i passed it on to two of our crew members so right around christmas i had the chicken pox my kid had the chicken pox and two of our

adult crew members had the chicken pox so i do remember that that uh i think billy pete's might have been one of Well, and that's dangerous, by the way, to get chicken hungry as an adult. So you were, I didn't know. I was like patient zero. I vaguely remember this. Yeah, you were patient zero, but I vaguely remember that story. But I do remember this episode, almost everyone got bronchitis. It was just ridiculous.

And I called this a blood, sweat, and tears episode because there was fake sweat and real sweat. There was blood in that there was a scene. I think they might have cut it out. but I come down the stairs or that metal steps or railing or whatever and I tripped. I don't think you were on set

when this happened, but I tripped and fell and I hit my knee against one of the steps like the metal stairs and I cut my knee open. So that was very painful. I do remember this being a rough set

like you just... Oh God. I remember those little cubicles had very low ceilings in the tiny little cubicle and I remember hitting my head a few times because I noticed as I was doing the whole thing with the clamp that we had in our heads

that was kind of making us crazy in the story. I remember when I was filming, hitting my head a couple of times and being like, oh my God, my head. I was doing this a lot because it was just a rough set to work in for sure. Rough, but truly the whole, I mean, I've never worked on a project

where almost everyone got sick. and it was like an episode of Oprah like you get bronchitis you get bronchitis you can have bronchitis I mean everybody from in front and behind the camera got ill during the filming of this episode and the cutting of the

cutting open my knee didn't really help and as we see from the teaser the teaser scene it's Kim falling into the prison and he summarily gets beaten up by all the prisoners and it was some good

stunty fight stuff in this episode, I have to say. And I saw Tom Morga's face, one of our regular stuntmen. I saw Tom a couple times, which was nice to see his face. Yeah. I love the whole like bouncing, throwing you around. And then at the end, you get tossed down or you get pushed towards me. And I look at you for a minute. And then I punch you. And at this point when we were rewatching, I'm like, why am I hitting Harry? like I thought this was supposed to my memory was this was the episode where we were buddies and why am I hitting him

and your poor face you look like why Tom why well when we were watching that scene where I get thrown towards you and there's that moment before anything happens where I see you and you see me and it's the it's the calm before the storm and right when that when we see that interaction between the two of us, Megan goes, you guys are going to kiss.

And then you end up punching me, and I go, no, that wasn't a kiss. That was a kiss with a fist. It was a fist to kiss. And I'll be honest, I don't remember that either. I don't remember you punching me. I didn't remember that that was the story. I'm like, what the heck? But clearly that was a strategy, right?

Oh, yeah, yeah. We were trying to play it off like, yeah, it was a cover. But I didn't remember it at this point in the rewatch. I will have to say every time they talked about, so this is an Akraterian prison. We find out that we are convicted of some kind of terrorist bombing. But every time, I've got to say, every time they say the word Akraterian,

I hear Beltran or Ethan Phillips or the whole gang that would tease you about the girl that you had the crush on, who had the line. The Akraterians would never do that. And so I laughed. It was hard for me to pay attention to this episode because they kept saying the word Akritarians, and I kept hearing the joke,

the teasing of the Akritarians would never do that. Robbie, we're going to bring her on as a guest. We're going to have to like settle this. We have to bring her on. And I'm sure she'll definitely come on as a guess. But yes, you're right. And I knew that you would bring this up. I said, every time I heard that Akritarian, I said,

Robbie's going to talk about this. He's going to talk about the Akritarians would never do that. We should have a, by the way, we should get everybody like Beltran and Ethan Phillips and even Picardo and Kate Mulgrew, just to do their best version of the Akritarians would never do that. And just kind of put them up for the fans and have everybody vote on who gives the best line reading of the Akraterians would never do that

because, you know, that line was famous with our cast. Yes, it was. That became a very, very popular line. Anyway, yeah. At my expense, of course. Yes, of course. I had to, we had to bring that. During the credits showing all the names of all the guest stars, one of the guest stars' name happened to be Beans, Morocco.

Oh, yeah, I saw that. I was like, what an awesome name. Beans Morocco is the guy that steals our shelter. Remember I take after you get stabbed, we go back to the shelter. And then the guy, I'm like, get out of, that's our, that's our little hut. And he's like, it's mine. He's like, ah, that's beans. Yeah, what a great name.

That's a great name. It sounds like some like Pirates of the Caribbean name. Like the whole, I got to say also the whole style of this. prison barge. It felt like we were on an episode of the Pirates of the Caribbean go to space or something. It felt very Pirates of the Caribbean's in space. You know, I don't know if, I don't know if you felt or if you noticed this, but the main bad guy, I guess, Pits is his name, you know. Every time I watched him, and with that head, that little headband thing you had on, I just kept thinking of 80s you know let's get physical physical i kept thinking like this guy's about to lead like an

aerobics class or something that that that headband really bothered me um so beans morocco you know we can start coming up with other names where the first name is a vegetable and the second the last name is a country right so it could be like it could be like artichoke zambia like that you know like that or and artichoke Nigeria, something like that. Right. This could be a thing that we... Okay.

Okay. Just throwing it out there. I mean, if you're going to go and get everyone, if you're going to go and get everyone to do there, the Akartarians would never do that rendition, then I can come up with, you know, vegetable country names. I like it. The director is, of course, we talked about this a little bit earlier.

It is Mr. Les Landau. tell a play by Ken Biller, but the story is by Claibon C. Harris. And I remember specifically the openings, when we're in our little hut for the first time, that opening, that first time that you see Paris and Kim in the shelter, that is when all the other Voyager actors that wanted to direct, other than myself, were observing us. And they were sitting next to less. and in the beginning they were they were behaving but halfway through they were cracking up joking laughing loud and to be perfectly honest you didn't get pissed off I did because I said look guys

this is a serious scene we're supposed to be you know we're all messed up here we've got this aggravation and maybe that that actually probably helped my acting because I was annoyed and aggravated my fellow co-stars yes I truly was annoyed with uh Ocardo, Roxanne Dawson, and Tim Russ. I think I do remember that. I do remember that doing their thing. And I do remember, like, because I had been the one who had directed, I felt like, well, I don't want to tell them that they're being a little loud or distracting

because it'll seem like I'm telling them they shouldn't be direct. Like, I'm trying to undermine their directing aspirates. So I was like, crap. I can't, like, I can't tell them that I actually think it's being distracting because it's going to seem like, you know i don't want them to direct but yeah it was awkward hey but good thing you had me there because i walked right up to them and i told them i said you good i said it i said uh i said what the hell are you guys doing you think if this was your scene and it was totally serious and it was a big dramatic scene that i would sit next to the director and start cracking up and making jokes

and and completely uh distracting you and messing up your take i i was so pissed and they did they shut up after that. They were like, oops, you know. So, yeah. So I got to be the bad guy. I could be the bad cop in that instance. Good. For you. So let's see. So we find out that we were put into this prison. You tell me how you were, you know, tried and then convicted. And I say same thing, exact same thing happened to me. We're accused of a trite lithium bomb in the Lactvia recreational facility that killed 47 people. And this is, we've, We come to learn this is a terrorist group called Open Skies that is that is doing this. And they think the trilithium bomb is because of Voyager because we have dilythium power sources.

And so that's how they make that connection. Obviously, it's not, obviously we didn't do that. But they say, get out of here. And the captain decides to leave for now to figure things out. But as she's sort of chased out by these two ships, these Akraterian ships, I noticed they look a lot like the Delta Flyer shuttle. Yeah. Like this, the shape and everything.

I was like, wait a minute. That looks like two Delta Flyer shuttles escorting us out, maybe a little bigger than the Delta Flyer, but I thought that was interesting. Yeah, very streamlined like the Delta Flyer. You were right about that. And what did you say the recreational facility was that the bombing took place? It sounded like you said Latvian.

Lactivia. Lactivia. Lactivia, okay. not to be confused, lactivia, not to be confused with Latvia, the country at Latvia. No, I don't want to offend any of our Latvian fans that are listening to this. No, we don't offend Beans Latvia. No, and Lativia really does sound like, you didn't get my joke, Garrett, it was beans. What did you just say?

I just said, we don't want to offend beans Latvia. Yes, I got it. Because it's a vegetable in a country. Okay. But you need a different vegetable than beans. Give me something different than beans. Cucumber Latvia Cucumber Latvia

We will not offend cucumber Latvia You know why I did not catch the joke immediately Because when you said Latvia Lactvia It just sounded like activia That there's that one Lactivia Lactivia

That's what I wrote down L-A-K-T-I-V-I-A Lactivia So it's kind of like a yogurt For lactose intolerant people Is what it is Yes Thank you

That's worth the recreation facility that we were accused of destroying because we hate, we hate lactose, okay? We do. We're so lactose intolerant that we blow up recreational facilities. We cannot tolerate anything that even sounds like lactose, much less eating it. It makes us gassy and terrorists. Did you know that Beans is actually only a nickname for Beans, Morocco? Oh, yeah.

His full name is soybean. It's soybean Morocco as well it is. I have heard that. Yeah. It was, I think it's open sky as opposed to open skies. I think it is open sky. You made it plural. Yeah.

Yes. I did. Which then made me think maybe this should be a t-shirt for the Delta Flyers, open sky, you know, something kind of cool with open sky. They're terrorists, though. I don't know if we don't have to put terrorists on the shirt. Yeah, let's not put any. Let's never make a t-shirt that says terrorism or bomb on it.

I'm going to guess that we're never going to do that. That would be bad. Okay. Just label an open sky. All right. Yeah. So I tell you that we're 300 meters underground and there's 50 other prisoners here. So which surprised me because I remembered as we started watching this, I remembered that it was actually a spaceship we were on.

So I was like, how can anything? believe that this is underground? Like, it's just, and maybe that's because I already knew. But do you think it, does it appear like we're underground? Maybe that's because the shoot is supposed to feel like it's coming from. Yeah, because of the shoot. So up until that point, it, everyone thinks it's underground, you know? And I think that was the big reveal when Kim climbs up, you know, and figures out,

oh my gosh, it's not underground. Maybe I just because I knew that I did remember that. Yeah, I think that's what it is. that clamp though how did they attach that to your head exactly i don't remember anything being in my head i think we just faked it and it was like uh i think i did something like this and then there was a a visual effect i don't think there was any no prosthetic or anything i don't think so they stuck robbie mcneal they did they did put yes because i remember moving your hair out of the way to show that little blinking light on the back of your head so they stuck something

something on there. I'm pretty sure. You think it was a visual effects, though. I do. I don't remember getting any kind of prosthetic on my head, but I could, there's a lot of things I don't remember. So that's possible. Would Dan be able to tell us this? Would Dan Carino? I don't know who would remember that. It's such a small detail. It's going to remember that. It's such a small detail. It is. We'd have to get a call sheet. So on the call sheet, as some of you patrons have seen, we interviewed Mike DeMarit, who was an AD in the show. And he talks about a call sheet and how we handwrote or our A.Ds and our production staff would handwrite in the old fashion way the call sheet. On the back of the call sheet, when you turn it over, when you turn it over,

you've got every crew member and department listed and who was there. But you also, sorry, on the front side, under special notes or anything, you'd have some of those notes. So if there was prosthetics that day for the head, that probably would have been noted on the call sheet. So that's a way we could find out if it was somebody could find the call sheet from the shoot and they exist they're out there because i've saved some call sheets and i've i've signed some at conventions over the years if you look under the special notes in that section where it talks about props and makeups and stunts and things like that it probably would say like prosthetics that day for you know it would it would probably list that specifically yeah i tend to think that it was it was not a visual effect really

I just recall, yeah, I just, I think I remember me having to like, you know, move your hair to see, to show that to camera. Right. But it's an interesting idea that this clamp is utilized to increase aggressive tendencies, you know, to increase agitation, which is really, really, you know, something that it is prison control. I mean, not prison, but population control for a prison is if you can increase somebody's agitation, and aggressiveness, then they're all going to end up killing each other. So you don't have to really do anything, just let them do their thing. I think for me, that thinking about that, it just reminds me of during World War II, I don't know if you know this story, but Hitler wanted a drug that would cause his troops to fight more.

like berserkers, you know, to be a little bit more violent or aggressive. And so the German Fartis, I was going to say Fartisutical, but it's pharmaceutical, not Fartisutical. No, Fartisutical is a whole different school of medicine that Tim Russ is very, and Ethan Phillips, I think went to that medical, the Fartisutical school. And I think Tim is a doctor in Fartisudism. Whatever is the largest pharmaceutical company in Germany, they were the ones that were given that order. And so when they first came up with their first trial run of this drug, they gave it to all the Germans, you know, a select sample of German soldiers and they wanted to see what would happen. And literally 35, 40 minutes later, these guys, it was the exact opposite. opposite happened. They weren't violent. They weren't aggressive. They were extremely loving. They were

extremely into sensations and whatever. And the drug that they had found was ecstasy, modern day ecstasy, MDMA is what they came up with. So they gave these, yeah, so these German soldiers are sitting there going, wow, your uniform, it's so, it feels so soft and wonderful. It's beautiful. And you, I think I love you. I mean, I really do love you, Gunta. You are probably, one of the best people I know. No, Montfred, you're the best. I love you. No, I love...

So the exact opposite happened. Anyway, that's just the one... We should have had some MDMA in the shoot. If they had just passed that out, instead of these little clamp implants, we would have... Well, things would have gotten. Things would have been different.

The whole different kind of situation. 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

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Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Yeah, I thought it was interesting that we see you trying to work on this pipe thing to diffuse the... The force field, short circuit that force field. You know, but you're starting to feel the effects of the clamp. We go back to the ship. They're trying to figure out what's going on. And I thought it was interesting that Torres comes up with.

this paralithium idea that, you know, not only dilithium could be converted, but it could also be paralithium, which I've never heard of that of paralithium before. That's the first time I heard. Correct. Yeah. So I thought that was, I thought that was interesting. And then so there's this other group that's got paralithium that they may be the ones. And we find out eventually later on it is those guys. Right. You do successfully disable that force field, right? Well, actually, no, at this point, you don't. Sorry, at this point, you're testing it and it, it, uh, I think it shocks me, right? I get knocked you or something. Yeah, you don't get killed, but it shocks you. And then other prisoners come in that some of the other guys, they are very suspicious. They want the pipe. They want to

see what this is. And this is the scene after the shock where Paris gets in the fight and is stabbed by the Akraterian and then Kim has to come in and fight off off the rest of them. It's a very cool fight scene and emotional scene. It's really cool. It is, but it was very bizarre for me to see how quickly you pulled that knife out. Like the minute he had his knife out, you just, it was like a card trick. Like you had, you know how a magician just pops open and a call it comes out of his hand. Like you went boop and boom, this knife just appears out of nowhere. It's like, when did you? ready in prison. Get that knife. It was got to be always ready. I think Com Paris was a Boy Scout. He was always prepared. That's the motto. I suppose. Always prepared. That that knife fight for me had

definite shades of West Side story going on right there. Yes, it did. You are getting ready to. And the thing is, you held your own. It reminded me that knife fight. It reminded me of, I had done a production of Romeo and Juliet at the Ford Theater with the Shakespeare Festival of L.A. And there was some wonderful choreography in that, in that Romeo and Juliet production where I had a couple of sword fights. But it reminded me of, yeah, like a Shakespearean sort of sword fight or a West Side Story sort of sword fight. The choreography was kind of cool. And it was, it was fun. I enjoy, I love doing stunts like that and fight scenes and was happy to do it and take the stab there.

and then you came in and just fully emotional swinging. Yeah. And you don't get stabbed by Pitt. You get stabbed by another dude. Some cheap. Random guy. Yeah. And it's funny.

Like it's, you know, we filmed this so long ago. This is over two decades ago. But then when that guy came in to stab you, I go, I remember that, dude. I remember him.

I remember his wardrobe was like a, like a surfer's wetsuit, you know, kind of converted into a prisoner, you know, garb, whatever. But I remember that guy. like just just little synapses were firing and I was thinking I remember that person on set now

you kind of get the raw end of the deal there you don't even get stabbed by the main guy you get stabbed by the the backup guy now I have to take you take me over to Don McManus's little house and we start no we don't go there first Robbie we go back to our oh yeah we go back to our place first and that's when we meet beans Morocco and he's taken over our our little hovel and then i got to go to don macmanus's place yeah or zio zio is the character go to zio's spot yeah we finally get to meet uh don's character zio and uh you know you want you want to make a make a deal exchange you know your shoes i think you offer up your shoes you offer up yeah uh he wants the pipe and you're like no i can't do that yeah so anyway kind of make a deal there with

well i say yeah what what is a deal you made Well, we negotiated back and forth. Oh, get out of there. Finally, I'm saying, I will take you with us. That's right. That's what it was. I didn't write that down. Yeah, I can't give you this pipe, man.

This is what's going to get us out of here. And then he realizes, oh, these guys have a escape plan. So that's why he agrees to give us shelter and lodging and food. And that food, by the way, those food bricks, it reminds me of there, there's a TV series right? What's the name of it? It's about that train, high-speed train. train in the future. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they feed the, the masses, food bricks there. Food bricks. Those are made out of, yeah, those are made out of, yeah, food bricks are a common

sci-fi trope of a very common sort of go with the manufactured food for the masses that, yeah, okay. Soilent green is a classic example of a food for the masses. Yeah. So now we go back to, so we make a deal. We go back and we do find the ship that was powered by paralithium, and we meet these two siblings, Vell and Piri, I think, Piri. And they look nothing alike. There's no way that can be siblings in real life. Yeah, they don't look anything alike.

No. Vell is from clearly of Scottish or Irish background, probably, with the red hair. And Piri? And Piri is straight up Mediterranean. Mediterranean of some kind. I thought they were really good, though, both of the red hair. actors. I thought they were really good. I, um, I didn't remember them. Obviously, we didn't work with them because we were stuck in prison, but I thought they were really good, both of them. I think

Peary, I think Peary was somebody's niece. Really? I, I kind of feel like this was Ken Biller's niece or something like that. I remember her being, I remember there being a, a little bit of nepotism going on. Oh, so-and-so just got cast because there's so-and-so's blood relative. And I thought, Interesting. Which happens. It happens in Hollywood. But she calls Janeway a coward. I thought, hmm, that's very bold of this young lady to direct that coward reference.

She, okay, so, so the actress that, yeah, I'm looking up right now. The actress that played Peary is Rosemary Morgan is her name. And she is the stepdaughter. She is the stepdaughter of James Cromwell, who was in Star Trek First Contact. There you go. There you go. She's the daughter of the original series guest star Julie Cobb. So she has a couple of connections to Star Trek. Her stepdad was James Cromwell from First Contact.

There you go. Mom, Julie Cobb was a guest star on the original series. See, look at that. I'm pulling that out of my half there. Yeah. She went on to as a, she was very young. She went on to do a lot of other TV shows. But that is Peary.

Yeah. That's her. And speaking of guest stars who are related to other people in the Trek world, who's the main Akraterian guy, Robbie? Who is it? I can't remember. He looks so familiar. Who is it? That's Chris Pine's dad, Robert Pine. Is it really? Yeah. And if you remember, Robert Pine was the, he was the commanding officer on chips,

the TV series chips. So, Ponch and, you know, Pontorelli and John, those guys all reported to Robert Pine. That was their box. I didn't look at it. He looked super familiar. I knew I'd seen him on a thousand things, but I didn't look it up. That's great. That's very cool. Chris Pinesdale. Yeah, Chris Pinesdale. Wow. I like that. Okay. So we've got a couple of Trek royalty or lineage trek people here. Yeah, we do. So. Peary and Vell, they refused to let Janeway board their ship. That's what Janeway just said to the Aquiterians is that they could not board her ship. So, so fair's fair, I guess. But she does. When they refused to let her board, she decides to just beam them over. Just picks them up, snatches them up. They establish through sensor scans that these are the likely bombers, not her, you know, Harry and Tom were not. So she beams them over.

And yeah, yeah, they are members of open sky. Yes. At least the brother is, right? Yes, the sister seems to be along for the ride. Yeah, yeah, that's right. does say that later on. Okay. So we go back to prison and Paris is stabbed and he's starting to get worse. Let's see, Zio explains the manifesto. The manifesto. And this is an interesting scene when he's sort of staged in a strange way because he's sort of facing away from you. Yeah. I have to say,

I think I understand why they did what they did. I'm not sure if it was the right call. They wanted that shot. They wanted the shot of Don McManus' character sort of looking and the round shoot behind him in sort of a Christ-like halo. Yes, this sort of wisdom. And I think everything in that scene and the staging and the photography was designed to sort of, you know, amplify that moment with the visual image. And I'm not sure if it was the right choice. It was it was so self-conscious and so bananas on bananas that I feel like it actually distracted from the moment. I agree with you 1,000% there.

Typically, I'm very pleased with what Uncle Les, our director, you know, how he directs. I'm down with whatever shots he decides to use or what camera angles and how he approaches his job as a director. But in that particular scene, I remember how difficult it was for me to try because I'm as you can see in that scene I'm working on the pipe to to basically deactivate the force field and I'm faced away from him okay so I'm looking at the at the you know the electronics and trying to rewire everything and I remember as an actor

I kept thinking God dang it how often should I be looking back at at Zio you know what I'm saying because he was talking about all this stuff yeah because at one point I do have some lines to him and the camera throws focus to me when I have those lines but it was so not organic I remember filming that going I wish we did this a different way

I really wish we did this a different way and it was really kind of the means justifying the end sort of like we really want this final shot of Zio with the halo and so we'll do everything we can to push this square peg into this round hole

until I think that's what they did I really do. And the other thing I noticed in this episode, a lot of long extended oners without any coverage. You know, often in a scene, you'll film maybe a wide shot where you see the whole room.

You'll film a close-up of one character, a close-up of another character, maybe a tighter two-shot. You'll have a number of shots to cover the scene. So when you edit it, you can change the pace. You can do all sorts of things. Yeah.

But in this episode, but it was handheld. Yeah. The whole, everything on the prison ship was handheld. And there wasn't a lot of coverage. A lot of the scenes were oneers. There weren't multiple shots to edit with. So you're stuck with like this scene, Don McManus's manifesto speech

and the shot that moves in and creates that Christ-like image, the visual. And there was no shot of a reaction to you listening or, or, I guess what I'm saying is they fit everything into that square peg in the round hole for one. They had one option and they went with it and they didn't shoot anything else. If they had different angles and for a moment you could have seen, you know, stay in that Christ-like image for a moment, but then you get out of it. Like let it just be a part of the scene, not what the whole scene is structured around. Yeah.

And you really notice the handheld when the halo is over him. You can see the movement in the camera. And I honestly feel, Robbie, that there is so much debris on the ground, like just junk that they had thrown all over the place. Like typically the camera can be on a dolly or they can set up, they can build a track. They'll bring, you know, the dolly along. But I feel like there was so much junk on the ground.

They were like, you know what, screw it. We'll just do handheld for everything. We don't even want to mess with having to, you know, build stuff on top of all this crap that's on the grounding or clearing it out of away and then putting it back in. Yeah, that could have been part of the reason. I also think back to when we made this one of the most popular shows in television that was winning all kinds of awards was NYPD Blue.

And it was changing the way that people made film and TV shows because it was all handheld. The NYPD Blue kind of edgy style was very popular. And so I think that I would imagine it was more than just the obstruction. of the trash and the set and stuff I think it was just for that edgy style of like gritty NYPD Blue style you know

story on the yeah that makes a lot of sense because it's true because when NYPD Blue started doing that people were like whoa everybody look how yeah this thing is really this is cutting edge

look how it's all handheld and it's almost like they were moving for the sake of moving you know like it's almost like the guy on whoever the camera operator was like okay I can hold this pretty still, but I'm going to, I'm going to do a little extra jolty just to get everyone who's watching to feel a sense of like, to, um, uncomfortability, maybe, a little bit of

anxiety. I mean, it heightens the tension in a way, you know, when, as an audience member. Yeah. It's funny on NYPD Blue because I was lucky enough to go shadow over there actually one time. Really? And I had, I had expected that the whole, the whole show was shot on, you know, cameras up on the shoulder handheld. And it wasn't actually. It was on dollies. They were on what's called a fluid head. So it's a just like a, you know, a head you can pan around any way you want. And they were all on long lenses. And so they would, the dollies would always be drifting and moving. And then the camera operators would be panning and the assistants would be zooming in and changing size. So it actually wasn't handheld, but it did have a lot of like the camera was always adjusting.

and settling and panning over and tightening and it was more that style than cameras up on the shoulder. I was surprised. I did think I expected that it would be up on the shoulder. Right. That's very interesting. Yeah. It's interesting. So he gives in the manifesto, which basically is saying like, this clamp is here to drive us crazy and have us kill each other. And if we can sort of zen meditate and overcome that agitation that they're causing, that we actually can win that they can't control us. So basically like a very Zen sort of, you know, Buddha sort of vibe that he was manifestoing there. And then you finally get the thing shut down. You guys climb up through the air conditioning vents. By the way, at one point, Don McManus is coming

around one of the corners. You guys are climbing. And I see it sort of bend and move. And I was like, oh, God, they should have braced it because it was just, you know, heating and air conditioning. like it was not the most sci-fi materials who have built a set and then to have it sort of bending and moving I was like oh that looks a little cheap but the bending and moving you probably saw me as I'm climbing inside of that thing it was so difficult to climb up that yeah because there was the only way for me to climb up was literally to use my strength to kind of wedge my hands out and my knees out and sort of shimmied I mean it was just yeah the progress was inches at a time and I was straining so hard to move faster that was did they have another set piece that was

flatter to film only flat part was as the very was at the very top the uh but everything else was it was pretty much a wow not a complete vertical but it was like 45 degrees or very even more than 45 It was such a steep incline. And I remembered going up in there and I was telling less, I go, I don't know who built this, but there's no, how am I supposed to climb up this thing? Like, I'm supposed to be scurrying up this thing. I mean, I utilize, I mean, I just can't even tell you how much force I had to exert just to make it look like I was kind of moving up through that thing.

And I just remember being very annoyed that it's built this way. I kept thinking, come on, guys, you know, you could have made this just a little bit easier. Like maybe, maybe some indentations where I could help pull my body up. Yeah, or something to help. But no, it was just slick and it was difficult to navigate. Well, look good. It looked good except for the one moment with Don when it bent and kind of wobbled. And I was like, oh, that looks like a heating gun.

But otherwise, it looked really good. I thought the cool shot outside as you're wiping all the soot off was very dynamic. But for me, like I said, but maybe it's because I remember the episode it didn't surprise me like i knew it was a ship the whole time it didn't feel like there was nothing else that felt like underground to me to you okay yeah like in the design or the vibe of it but so we come back you come to take care of paris he talks about he had a a dream about megan delaney but paris is dying and uh it's a i think a beautifully written scene i was very proud of what i did in the scene, and I was very, very impressed with what you did. I just thought it was a really

great scene all around with turns and good writing and good acting, if I do say so myself. It's a moving scene, because you can see how, you can see the deterioration of Paris's mind. You know what I'm saying? Like, he's just, he's losing it. I mean, he's close to dying, basically. And it's just, and it's just really, it's, it's an emotional scene to watch, I would definitely say very emotional. It's very emotional and you see the beginnings of him really of Paris losing it where he's he doesn't recognize he doesn't he thinks Harry stabbed him for a moment yeah yeah and well he doesn't realize he would stabs right he was he was like what what happened what happened yeah he's starting no he doesn't it doesn't remember he's starting to lose it it

it's very sad it's just sad yeah and if you think about it up until this point any anybody who's watching Voyager, they know that there's Paris, and then there's Kim, who is kind of, you know, Paris's sidekick in a way, or Paris sort of mentors Kim in a way, right? He's the big brother to Harry. And then this is the episode where literally now Harry is thrust into this role of being the protector or the big brother, right? So as you, you know, the introduction of Paris and Kim is basically Paris saving Kim from being swindled by quark

you know so there's that that big brother mentality or the big brother little brother dynamic that is set up very early in Voyager and that continues all through every single episode in season one and season two and then in season three in this particular episode there is a dynamic

shift caused by the stabbing of Tom Paris now Kim has to be the one that is looking out for Paris which is, you know, it's a big, it's a big change for the characters. Yeah, for sure. Huge. So Kim now asked the other prisoners to work together.

Yeah. Since he's found a way out, then they ask him, oh, really? Where, what does it lead to then? And he tells them it's space and everyone there laughs at him. And he gets a bunch of stuff thrown at him. And that was not fun filming that because. I was going to say, what, stuff was really hitting you. Like, that was.

They were throwing everything at me. I was just, you know, I remember I was thinking, what if something like, you know, like I'm not wearing protective eye. Like, hey, I could have lost an eye, you know, I mean, it was really up to to the, it was up to the precision of, I can't remember who was doing most of the throwing, but, you know, let's say it's George Flack, probably Tom Morgan. Yeah, Tom Morgan. Tom Morgan. Tom Morgan does it all. But they were really, whoever did most of the throwing, I have to, I have to give them praise for avoiding my. eye or any of you know anything crucial like i you know nothing was was thrown at my my you know private

areas or or or my eyes or but it was uh it was a little unnerving to do that speech and have people just throw stuff at you that's for sure well then you go back to your quarters and you you walk over and you see paris yeah has taken apart your pipe oh god yeah and you were mad you almost killed paris i know i know yeah i remember that was that was the that was the commercial break was was was basically me holding that pipe over my head and they they cut to commercial at that point and yeah I I well because if you think about it that's the way out that's the way out well that's what we come back and and uh zio's saying like you got to kill this guy he's a drain on your resources even offers you a knife you know yeah to kill me and but you refuse and then uh zio throws us out he's like

well you got to get out of here and if you're here I'll kill you both if you if you don't don't leave your drain our resources. Get out of here. You know, that scene right before me dropping the knife, you know, when I'm holding it right there at that close up on me, I had to sneeze so bad. That take. This is over two decades ago, and I still remember that take. I'm sitting there going, don't sneeze, don't ruin it, don't ruin the take. Just, you know, so when I'm talking, it's a little, it's a little, it comes off in a really kind of funky way. It's a little odd sounding and that's because I'm holding back a sneeze the entire time and I'm like and I drop the knife right by the way speaking of odd sounding I wouldn't jump back for a minute when you ran into the

whole group in the prison and you're like guys there's a listen to me yeah listen to me and in the wide shots and stuff before we cut in tight I think you must have looped that in like ADR recorded dialogue because it didn't sound like like I had to go back and listen to it I'm like was that Garrett? Like, it did not sound. You thought it was someone else? I was like, wait, who is that? And I listened to it three times. And I was like, that does not sound like, like it must have been in the mix or in the fact that it was re-recorded because it just sounded weird. But it was you, but it sounded weird. I was like, who is that? No clue. Remember, I'm still getting used to looping too. Remember that? You know, it's like I'm not as much of a veteran as you are. Season three,

no excuses anymore dude no no no all right all right all right so we go back on the ship and janeways decided she's going to you know trade these prisoners that she's got these uh the real bombers for for uh kim and paris and the occretarian guy chris pine's dad uh he goes he goes nah they've been convicted like that's how it works here that's that's how it works like you're your guys are done there's no it doesn't matter what you find even if we made a mistake mistake. We don't care. Yeah. That's how it works here. And she's like, what? Like, no, she thought solving this whole thing was going to get her guys out. And they don't work like that. Yeah, no, she's, she's going by the books. And the minute she finds out that Chris Pine's dad is like,

no, even if you have new evidence, it doesn't matter. We don't care. And that literally sets Janeway off. At that point, she's like, oh, yeah, okay. If you're going to play that way, all right, I'll play, I'll play tough with you. Well, you'll see how I'm going to respond. under that. Great plan though. Take Neelix's ship, not Voyager, because Voyager is totally under, is going to be scrutinized by the Akraterian patrol ships

and they jump in Neelix's ship and Neelix is able to show us a little bit of his razzle dazzle in piloting that ship of his. I seem to recall that his ship looked different than that. I thought it was more compact. I was like

this is kind of elongated. Is that how his ship is? I thought it was more of a you know more of a vertical orientation and sort of a horizontal orientation of that ship so it looked a little different so i don't know all i know is she takes neelix's ship over there and the next thing you know she's sliding down in that beautiful backlight with a phaser rifle in her hands looking like a badass taking down prisoners and and rescuing tom and harry so uh that was kind of cool She slid down the slide. Yeah, and Tuvok does.

And then Tuvok comes sliding down. Neelix is up there trying to stall with the Akriterians. Yeah. He's very funny. Did you mention earlier, I'm going to go back for a second. Did you mention that they were only 50 prisoners in there? Is that what you said earlier? That's what Tom says.

I made a note. Like Tom says this to Harry. We're underground and there's 50 other prisoners. And obviously he's wrong with everything. They're not underground. There's a lot more than. 50 prisoners. But that's what Tom thinks. Oh, you know, in the beginning, we're just down here in this small place underground, like being held. Right. Right. The other thing I want to,

you've kind of glossed over is the whole, this man is my friend, nobody touches him, scene. That scene when they're looking, you know, at you and just salivating over your shoes and your clothes and everything. This was the famous scene where as I'm like, you know, kind of waving them off, I stepped on you. Oh, yeah. I'm a stick. And I remember, I remember, I remember, Robbie, I knew that I stepped on you because obviously, you know, that I heard you go, you made a sound, you made a grunting sound. And I know that it wasn't the trash or debris on the ground. And that it was, I don't know if I stepped on your leg, your thigh, your hand, whatever it was. But when you, when Les Landau, yelled out cut that's when you said from the ground because you're on the ground i hear a voice

and it's you and you said i hate not being the hero i know i like to be the one that's out there fighting and yeah i want to be like suffering and dying and getting stepped on i know so i want to apologize to you and 25 years like 26 years later i'm so sorry i stepped on you This happens. Things happen in life, especially in action scenes like that. Yeah, we go back on the, back on the ship. And there's, there's Tom and Harry in Sick Bay. And Harry seems haunted. You know, Paris seems to be kind of recovered pretty, pretty good. But, but Harry seems to feel a lot, a lot more guilt, a lot more. He's just, yeah, he's a little bit haunted. He's worried or he's stressed about. concerned about what could have been is what it was right the aggressiveness the violence the all of that that he that he felt in himself for the first time and saw in himself and it's a side of himself that i don't think he had ever really experienced before and it's scary and i think one reason paris could maybe get over that a little quicker and and even says to him like you know what i remember

someone saying this man is my friend nobody touches him i'll remember that for a long time i think paris's ability to go yeah there's a lot of violence there i see it i i was i was triggered by it but i think paris had experienced that before whereas harry it was like the innocent kid who experiences that monster inside of him that warrior inside of him for the first time yeah is is is affected by it and so it was harder for him to, to, uh, just recover so quickly. But it was nice. Yeah, I mean, if you think about it, that was really a bit of PTSD setting in. You know what I'm saying? It's just, he's never been in a situation like that ever. And especially in a situation where his best friend has been mortally wounded by a knife, you know, you've been stabbed and you're literally on your last,

and your last gasp of life. And yeah, so it was super, super stressful for kids. Did you have a theme for this episode? I was going to let you go and then I would riff off of you. Okay, I got this. I would say for me, the theme is kind of summed up, you know, my perspective on theme, it's kind of summed up in that line that I just mentioned

where Tom says, you know what I remember. I remember someone saying this man is my friend, nobody touches him. I think the lesson is that love wins, like not violence, that in the end, you know, love wins, that what Tom remembers is the loving part of the memory, not the violence, that love will win in the end. And that, you know, Janeway's love and care for Harry and Tom won.

She found a way to win and get, you know, and save us because of love, not because of the hate that these Akraterians had for locking people up and, you know, those kind of hate-fueled, negative, destructive kinds of choices don't win. So anyway, love wins. That's a good theme slash lesson for this episode. I'm going to go with a more comedic theme slash lesson. And that is, when faced with extreme conditions or dire straits, just talk about food to get your mind off of it. Because we do that a lot in this episode. To the point that we could compile our own Delta Quadrant cookbook,

just like Neelix has a cookbook. Just from this episode. There's so many meals. Good Lord, we talked about food in multiple scenes. And in the very end, we talked more. more about food. So we had a nice steak dinner. Um, so that's going to be my comedic theme. All right. Good thing. Well, great. Well, that was a great recap. What is, uh, do you know what next week is? We've got another episode for next week. Let's let's let's all take a look. Let's take a

look. It is, uh, the swarm. The swarm. Okay. The swarm is, uh, season three, episode four. That'll be our rewatch and recap for next week. Thanks for joining us for, uh, our season. season three, very special episode, The Shoot, with the Delta Flyers. It was great to rewatch and remember this. Thanks for sharing that with us. And for all of you, Patreon patrons, stay tuned for your bonus content. Bye, guys. I'm going to be

the Burt's the Bhopal Bhopal B, Bhopal, B, Bhopal,

B, Bhop, B, Bhop, B, B, Bhop, I'm going to be able to be.