The Delta Flyers - The Fight

Starting point is 00:00:00 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 my fellow Trek actor and star of the feature film infested. Mr. Robert Duncan McNeil and myself, your favorite forever ensign garret wong remember you can get the full version of this podcast by signing up to become a patron at patreon.com forward slash the delta flyers how'd you like that one? infested infested was i did that right after we wrapped like the series uh 2001 that's right yeah i got this call as we were finishing up the entire run of our show yes uh to go in for this movie it was a

Starting point is 00:00:59 horror film, but kind of a, kind of a campy horror film. Yeah, I ended up doing that movie right after we wrapped. I went to out near the Hamptons in Long Island. Oh, we went back east to film this. Yeah, like six weeks or four, five, six weeks. I can't remember. Who was your co-star? Amy Joe Johnson, I think, was in it. Oh, from Power Rangers. Okay. For Power Rangers, Zach Galligan was in it. Yeah, who was also on Voyager as Species A472. Do you recall the name of your character? Nick? I don't know. Not Nick Lacharno. It's Eric, which is very funny because your on-screen wife is married to an Eric, and you played an Eric at the end of it. Oh, I never thought of that. Yes. I thought that was interesting. Infested, yes. The screenwriter for Infested, he went on

Starting point is 00:01:53 not long after we made that movie, just a couple of years. He wrote the screenplay for the History of Violence, a Kronenberg film, and Josh was nominated for an Oscar. He may have won it. I can't remember. Wow. An Academy Award winner or nominee or whatever, right after we made this silly little, you know, this little movie. And the other connection to Josh Olson, the writer and director of Infested, he directed it as well.

Starting point is 00:02:22 He was a PA on Masters of the Universe. and I yeah I remember chatting with him about his aspirations he had tons of energy and was really a go-getter and a film buff and he was right out of high school or college I think right out of college when he uh um would PA'd on master's of the universe so when I went into audition he's like do you remember me I was like no he goes I was a PA on Masters of the universe So we had a blast. I feel like that's what got you the role almost in a way. Maybe.

Starting point is 00:03:02 Yeah, because you were cool to him on the set of masters. You said you talked to him a bit, right? So this was an enthusiastic young, young man, and you gave him the time of day, and he still remembered that all the way up to me. Maybe that's how you got the audition. He actually mentioned that.

Starting point is 00:03:17 He's like, you were really nice to me. Like you always. And I remember thinking when I got that little movie, I remember thinking to myself and some people like, it's just another reminder of like be nice to the people that don't always get the respect they deserve be nice to them because you never know when the shoes are going to change shoes are going to change their fortunes how's that you can say shoes when people's when people's fortunes change and who's now in the in the position to do you a favor or be nice to you or whatever so

Starting point is 00:03:50 just be nice to everybody yeah that is that is the lesson learned in this intro you usually we talk about the lesson after we review the episode. But the lesson for the intro is, you must be nice to the lowest person on the totem pole on the set on this. These are all you aspiring actors and creative types out there. You got to be nice to everybody. And that includes the people that are on the bottom of that rung of that ladder because they are, most of them are, or planning a vertical ascent up the ladder. They're not, they don't want to be a PA for the rest of their life. So yeah. So look at that. It paid off right there. I love that story. So cool. All right. Are you ready for this episode? I am so ready. Okay. All right. Well, this week's episode is The Fight.

Starting point is 00:04:38 That's why, as you can see, I'm going to. Ah, you've got Robert Beltran ready for battle. I've got Chocote behind me with the cast of Voyager, but Chocote is prominent in the foreground in a boxing type of a stance or at least a stance of ready to get fight, get into a fight to scrap a little bit. Ready for some combat there. Combat, a little bit of Voyager combat. So, yes, that is the name of this episode.

Starting point is 00:05:05 The fight. Yeah, so why don't we just go watch this right now and come back with our review. Okay. All right, we'll be right back. Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material. We are back from watching the fight. And yes, boy, that's the most yelling from Chakotay I've heard.

Starting point is 00:05:25 Oh, my gosh, yeah. In the entire series, you got to be. Okay. I agree. All right, let's start with our haiku and our limerick. Here we go. Okay. My haiku for the fight.

Starting point is 00:05:38 Can't find our way out. Chaotic space has trapped us. Chikote listens. This was, the hardest ones to come up with. I was like, oh my God, it's difficult. It's nice. He does listen.

Starting point is 00:05:56 He does. Okay. Here's the limerick synopsis in a poetic format. Yes. For the fight. Here we go. Let's go. First, we see that Chukote has a mean left jab.

Starting point is 00:06:10 Then chaotic space in the commander start to gab. Time for a vision quest. Chukote does his best. But in the end, it's clear. his hair definitely wasn't fab that hair do his hair his hair oh my gosh we'll talk about it let's talk about when we get to it but that is very funny that's very funny okay jacote's hair in this episode people let's talk about it we'll get to that when we get to that let's let's talk about our guest stars can you give us a little 4-1-1 on on our three guest

Starting point is 00:06:47 our three guest stars. So Carlos Palomino was our alien boxer. Oh. And Carlos, so he was the alien boxer, he was actually a professional boxer. He was born in Mexico, moved to L.A. at the age of eight. And while he was in the Army, he started boxing. He was in the U.S. Army. He became the Army boxing champion in 1971 and 1972. Huh. And in 19. And in 19. In 1772, he also won the National AAU Light Welterweight Championship. He was a real... He's a real deal. And his very first scripted acting appearance was on Buck Rogers in the 21st century.

Starting point is 00:07:34 He played the Olympian. Oh, my goodness. He was on Buck Rogers. That was one of my favorite shows, but I don't remember his character. I'm going to have to go back and look at that. I think that was in 1980, I want to say. I didn't write down the date, but I think it was 1980. He was also had gone on the Tonight Show as himself.

Starting point is 00:07:54 And he was also on the comedy taxi as himself. So he was because he was a professional boxer. Interesting. That's how he got his foot in the door in show business, I guess, you know, and then started acting after a couple appearances on, you know, the Tonight Show and things like that. Yes. And I'm going to go ahead and go on a limb and say, this was probably his. first and maybe his only role in prosthetics and boxing at the same time?

Starting point is 00:08:23 Yes, probably. Okay. Probably. But yeah, that was Carlos Penning. Nice. All right. Our other guest star is the grandfather, Chiquote's grandfather, was Ned Romero. Ned Romero, Grandpa.

Starting point is 00:08:35 Ned Romero. Ned Romero passed away in 2017. Ah. I know. But Ned was born in Louisiana, which will come up again in a second. he was born in louisiana so originally from louisiana and his very first job was in 1963 on the tv show the many loves of doby gillis now what i find funny about that is my father only did one play in his life he did the high school senior play and it was

Starting point is 00:09:06 a doby gillis play it was a play about what he played my father played doby gillis and that was Ned Romero's first professional job. But I guess Dobie Gillis, this is way before my time. I guess in the 50s, Dobie Gillis was a TV show that was very popular. And so there was a play. Maybe it started as a play, then became a TV show, and then

Starting point is 00:09:28 people would perform the play. My dad was in that play, Dobie Gillis. This is amazing. Now we get to Ray Walsston who plays Boothby, sort of. It's a holodeck version of Boothby. But it's not really Boothby, because it's a holodeck.

Starting point is 00:09:44 creation where he's a boxing coach, which Boothby is not in real life. Correct. Correct. No. But Ray Walston was also born in Louisiana. So two of our guest stars. Two Louisiana people. Yeah. And Ray Walston passed away right before we wrap the series. He passed away in January 2001. And his very first job was in 1954. Ray Walston did a TV show called The Web, which was a mystery anthology series. Every week would be a different story. And I don't know what his role was or what he did, but the web was his very first job.

Starting point is 00:10:21 Ray Walston, I have to mention, was also one of the actors that performed in a show called Studio One. Studio One was a really famous CBS live television show in the 50s that was kind of the pinnacle of highbrow, great acting, great right. writing. Some of the best writers got started there. Rod Serling got started there. Gore Vidal got started there. People like Charlton Heston, Art Carney, Jack Lemon. They all

Starting point is 00:10:49 performed at Studio One. Cool. It was a, they were dramas written for this TV show. And Ray Wilson was a part of that, which I didn't know. So anyway, there's our, there's our guest stars, some very prestigious and cool accomplishments by all of them. And Ray also worked on an episode with Species 8472, where he had scenes with Chacote there as well. So this is sort of, you know, like a reunion for Ray and Robert Beltron. Robert Beltran. Okay, you were right. Monoski is teleplay.

Starting point is 00:11:22 Unbelievable. Yeah, good call, my friend. Good call. It felt like a boxing show just felt like Joe to me for some reason. He would be the one that would say, I want to do that one. Yeah, but the story, so the actual impetus of this episode came from Michael Taylor. So that is the story. But the teleplay was written by Joe Miner.

Starting point is 00:11:40 Good for you and selecting that. And we were both wrong on the director. It was Rick Colby on this one. My goodness. Okay. I didn't realize Rick was directing. This has to be one of his last episodes. I was going to say the same thing.

Starting point is 00:11:55 Yeah. Okay. Let's just jump right into this. The very first scene is already quite chaotic to begin with. You've got Chikote's screaming. I mean, he's in such pain that I've, again, I've never seen him scream like that. before we have the doctor we have seven we have paris there trying to to help him he's he's screaming about the voices making them stop and and all the while this is happening the ship is going through

Starting point is 00:12:21 these major shakes so we're we're really unsure of what what's going on there's a mystery a foot and i didn't understand if he's screaming and you know the very first moment he tries to sit up and paris shoves him back down and yeah i was like why isn't he strapped down like why don't he restrained yeah Why isn't he restrained? Yeah, that's true. I feel like there should have been something. Especially the more we got into the story, I was like, they need him to be, like, I don't know. I feel like he should have, if it wasn't physical restraint, some kind of tech that would have held him down and something like.

Starting point is 00:12:55 Yeah. I don't know. That felt like a miss. Okay. We're just going to believe. And under sight. Yeah. Yeah, he wants to get up so badly.

Starting point is 00:13:03 He's screaming like we've never seen him before, but yet he's free to jump up and hear to hurt him. himself or other people, you know. And he's a boxer, for gosh sakes. Yes, exactly. So now we're on the bridge. And we learn from Torres that a graviton shear is basically buckling the hole. If we don't find a way out of chaotic space, we are going to die here. We're going to die. The stakes are very high, clearly. Very high. And Boulon is standing at the console behind Janeway. And I just thought when I saw that, I'm like, why don't we use that more often? we do now and then like that's a great place to put somebody you can tie in janeway oh yeah for sure we didn't use it enough i don't know if that was rick's idea or whatever but

Starting point is 00:13:49 well it's also cool because we don't really ever see torres there she's usually at the side station on the bridge um which is closer to uh tuvac on that side of the bridge right and then you typically see seven standing in that back station behind janeway but you are right it is a really good place to place an actor because you can jump from one from either chakote or janeway up to whoever pivot point to like grab information and see other people acting behind janeway yeah yeah i thought that was cool spot to put her yeah we then see an exterior shot of voyager and the ship is just you can see all these distortions going on you know it just look cool i thought the effect it's a cool yeah the effect was definitely cool but this this is the graviton sheer working on our hall which is not a good case for us

Starting point is 00:14:35 Yeah, we're in danger right now. We jump to the sick bay and we hear a doctor's log supplemental and the doctor says that Chakotay's condition is continuing to deteriorate and Chacote calls for the doctor. He says he's tired. He says he wants to sleep. The doctor says, look, if you lose consciousness, it could sever the link with the aliens that live here. And this is the only way that we can get out of chaotic space. We need their help. And the doctor's sort of conjectures that or theorizes that maybe the aliens are reconfiguring Chikote's neural pathways so that they can communicate with him.

Starting point is 00:15:17 And then the doctor then reminds him of his boxing match on the holodeck when he was injured, that maybe that has something to do with it. So then we do have a flashback to the holodeck. Before we go to the flashback, I want to say two things. Go. This is when I started going, oh, the hair. this is where I was like Beltran two things he's lying on his stomach

Starting point is 00:15:39 on the surgical bed he's lying on his stomach kind of hanging over the end and it's a cool shot Rick did but I was like why is he lying on his stomach and his hair looks really bad I was just like

Starting point is 00:15:58 there's a few things wrong for me in the scene but anyway that's all I got to say about that. But the hair, by the way, so the first scene and the ship shaking and all and this scene where he says, you can't fall asleep, you've got to talk to the aliens.

Starting point is 00:16:12 I was lost. I'm like, wait, what? And then we go back in time. So this story jumps around. It jumps around a lot. It's a confusing. It's difficult to keep track of, to track anything in this episode.

Starting point is 00:16:24 I would say follow the hair. If you look at the hair, you know where you are in the story. Because the hair is horrible. here. So that's late in the story. So just follow the bad hair to the better hair and then you'll be fine. I love that you bring up the point that if you're confused in this episode, just follow the hair. When you see the hair messy, you know it's in what you're late in the episode. Yes. When the hair is normal, it's from a different timeline. So if you are lost as we are in this Bermuda Triangle

Starting point is 00:16:53 type S episode, the hair is the way to find your way out of it. Follow the hair. I love it. So now we're in a flashback on the holodec. Boothby is coaching up Chacote and, you know, he's ready for this fight. Good old Boothby. I was like, wait a minute. He's a groundskeeper at Starfleet. What is he? What?

Starting point is 00:17:13 I was very confused. But then I'm like, okay, it's a holodeck. You know, Chacote probably like Boothby. So he's like, hey, computer, program this holodeck boxing thing and make Boothby my coach. Why not? That's what I think it was. Even though he knows nothing about boxing.

Starting point is 00:17:28 And he's going to tell him like, just water. it some more or trim the dead branches. It's like, what? What does that have to do with boxing? That would have been funnier if he actually used gardening terms to sort of get his point across to Chacote. But he doesn't. He doesn't. But he is clearly a boxing master of boxing. He knows everything. And he's coaching Chkotea. Chikote is now in the ring and he's kind of sizing up his opponent. And all of a sudden, he sees a very weird but yet very cool effect where everything is just kind of, kind of spaces getting distorted around the box. Yeah, yeah, it's distorted spaces. Like those little kaleidoscope things that you look through as a kid, right? You see the

Starting point is 00:18:11 different, that's what it looks like, a prism. That's what it is. Yeah, right. You're right. It's a prism. And this weird prism-like effect starts happening in which the other boxer is, is now kind of in the midst of this prism. But that pretty much causes Chocote to put his guard, or let his guard down. He kind of has a little bit of a panic moment. Like what's going on? What's going on? And that's when he gets knocked out. Big time. He does. Yes. Now we're in a flashback of Sick Bay where the doctor is reviving Chukotay. And he is basically pulled out of this by Janeway's Hale. Janeway hails Chacote to the bridge. And Chacote heads to the bridge and he asks, first of all, is this an ion storm?

Starting point is 00:18:57 And everyone's just basically saying we have no record of any anomaly like this. We have no clue. We've analyzed it from every angle. Our sensors don't make any sense. Space is distorted. And now we're inside of this distortion. And seven then calls Janeway to astrometrics. And that's where we finally get some answers.

Starting point is 00:19:17 Because up until this point, it's just been a big mystery. what is going on here. We have no clue. And Seven now tells Janeway that the Borg have been aware of this phenomenon for years. Like they've seen this all over the place. This is a zone, a zone where the laws of physics are in a state of flux. They're constantly changing. And they have named this place chaotic space. And it appears completely randomly and unexpectedly, almost like a wormhole. Like you never know where it's going to be. And Janeway says, you know what? we need to recalibrate or maybe even redesign our sensors from the ground up. Otherwise, we're just flying blind.

Starting point is 00:19:55 So those are her orders. We jumped to Chocote's quarters and he's sitting there doing some work. But all of a sudden, he hears the computer say begin round one. And then he sees boxing gloves on a chair. Those chairs, his little sitting area, had a native pattern, an indigenous pattern. And I'm like, what? We've never. I thought it was blankets thrown over at first.

Starting point is 00:20:21 But it's not. It's definitely, and I wrote down to my notes. It's upholstered. Yes. I said, when did Chikote have time to re-apolster his chair with the native design? And we've never seen this in five years. Five years were the episodes. We've been in Chikote's quarters numerous times.

Starting point is 00:20:38 And again, you're right. I said, it's got to be a blanket. It's got to be a, but then you look closely. No, it is not a blanket. It's upholstery. It's upholstery. The other thing I noticed in this scene was there was, one wide shot where you could see out his windows. Okay. And that was, that had to have been a green

Starting point is 00:20:54 screen outside because it was all the weird. It wasn't the star field. It wasn't, what was it? No, it was all the moving stars. Oh, the weird stuff. Yeah. But then I noticed the rest of the scene, they avoided the windows. And that's really for cost because they don't want to spend the money on every time you cut to Chakotay's close up that you've got to have a green screen behind him. So if you notice in the scene, you do see it once, maybe twice. You see the, the stars moving around. But they avoid the windows because it costs money. Yeah. Yeah. It's a budget. It's a budgetary decision, definitely. So he's called to the bridge by Tuvok. And as he's leaving his quarters, he looks back at the reupholstered chair and he sees that the gloves are gone. They're not even there. They were

Starting point is 00:21:37 never there in the first place. So again, very, very mysterious. On the bridge, we realize that we are dealing with these gravimetric shears and we're just trying to come up with a strategy and Chocote keeps hearing sounds from the fight. Now he sees gloves at Harry Station. So he goes up there and he kind of reaches for the gloves. But then he starts swinging just kind of wildly, let's in the air. And then at Tuvok, when Tuvok tries to intervene, tries to restrain him or yeah, come over and help him. So yeah, so Tuvok gives him the Vulcan neck pinch and down he goes. Tuvok wins this round and Tom calls for a medical emergency.

Starting point is 00:22:19 By the way, Tom stands up here to help, I guess, or something and then calls sickbay. And I'm like, wait, who's driving this ship? Like, you can't just stand up. Like, unless this is like a Tesla with autopilot. That's what I was saying. You hit autopilot.

Starting point is 00:22:37 You hit autopilot and you got up. Otherwise, no one's flying to ship. No one's flying the ship. Although I guess we're just floating there because we don't want to fly into anything because our sensors aren't work. All right. So maybe it's okay. But it was just weird. You don't normally see Tom just jump up out of his chair and leave the ship, especially when things are dangerous.

Starting point is 00:22:55 No, you don't. Okay. So now we are in sick bay and the doctor is singing different tones and checking to see if there's been any damage to the auditory nerves. There's nothing. But as this is going on, Janeway shows up. I like the singing, by the way, he says, he does say the doctor's like computer set the parameters to 800 hertz or something, whatever the hurt, you know, he's setting the music, oh, oh, and then he changes it and sings like at the highest pitch I've ever heard Bob DeGarde. Yeah, almost falsetto. Yes, it was very funny.

Starting point is 00:23:34 So basically, you know, the doctor explains to Janeway that Chacote has the genetic marker for a cognitive disorder. It's called sensory tremens. And the primary symptoms of this disorder are visual and auditory hallucinations. And we also learned that Chocote's family doctor suppressed the gene before he was born so that he wouldn't have to deal with it. But for some reason, now that we're in chaotic space, this gene has been sort of. switched on. At this point, Janeway goes over to Chacote and we learn how his grandfather refused treatment for this condition. He just wanted to endure whatever symptoms that were going on and he didn't accept the treatment. So now we know there's something with, you know,

Starting point is 00:24:24 Chocote's genetic makeup that is causing him to have these hallucinations. Moving on to the bridge, our sensors are online and they're stable to one million kilometers. That's about as far as we can see, we're at a quarter impulse and Harry now to Texas ship. So we have a ship. And now, instead of dealing with it on the bridge, we jumped to the briefing room where we replay the final distress call from the captain of that ship. And evidently the captain and the engineer on that ship were also experiencing hallucinations. And the ship was there for a whole year. Whose voice was that on the captain thing? Do you know? Because it's not listed as a guest star. It's not. I wonder if it was a loose.

Starting point is 00:25:04 loop group person or probably yeah did it sound familiar to you at all no okay no I couldn't place it but it just occurred to me when I heard it I'm like wait a minute must have been a loop grouper yeah must have been a loop group person yeah yeah and so all the all the all the actors in loop group by the way are actors they are they were sag actors yes you know they were capable of doing voices like this and often would do those kind of things definitely they just didn't get the on screen credit the way that on-screen actors do. Yep. That's right. So the ship was there for a whole year before basically they lost, you know,

Starting point is 00:25:41 containment and they were exposed to the elements and they died. The doctor requests beaming the captain's body over to perform an autopsy, which Janeway agrees to, which brings us into sick bay. She also says bring their, because they're sensors. Oh, yeah. We do find out in the scene that their sensors were more advanced than ours. And they couldn't make it out. So that's not good news to us.

Starting point is 00:26:06 So Jamie was like, well, bring their sensor tech over here so we can use some of that. Maybe that'll be helpful too, like anything. Yeah, that command she gives to Torres. So Balana, your love, it's up to her to do it. Okay. So now in Sick Bay, we learn from the doctor that optic and auditory neurons have been partially stripped of their normal protein insulation. this is on the alien captain who has been the alien captain's brain and did you see the

Starting point is 00:26:36 playback for the alien captain's brain it was like this giant four quadrant it was a whole different shape than yeah human brain i was like oh yeah if you're doing an autopsy it wouldn't look that doesn't look like a brain that i that's a very big brain compared to our yeah yeah and then we find out that maybe something in chaotic space has been altering DNA yeah stimulating the DNA in some way. Yeah. And he says, the doctor says that he can control hallucinations using a neural suppressant, but he needs to find a way to deactivate the gene in Chakote. Chikote says, look, I need to go on a vision quest. It is a kuchy moya time. It must happen now. And the doctor says, look, this is not advisable, but he, you know, in the end, basically Chakotay has his way.

Starting point is 00:27:27 Janeway agrees. Janeway agrees. It says where you got to wear this cortical monitor. Yeah. Borgal monitor. Yeah. And my notes here are the doctor is speaking in such a low volume. He's almost whispering in here. Like there's a lot of different, um, different takes that Bob Bacardo took or approaches to how he was dealing with, with Chacote. And I, I almost feel like he was trying to find the right, like, you know, should I be a little bit less? You know, I don't want to, I don't want to, um, I don't want to get it so that he's, he's riled up any more than he already is. So, yeah. maybe if I try my voice a little bit like my quiet doctor voice that this will kind of help out jacote so I thought that was interesting that the doctor is um is adjusting his volume in different scenes to try to get through to chakota exactly um so on jacote's vision quest he is back in his quarters actually and starts in his quarters with his uh vision vision quest little monitor bundle he has his bundle yeah yeah then he presses the button on that piece of heck that gets him into it, right?

Starting point is 00:28:33 He's got a stone that he grabs and sort of holds the stone and acuchimoyas. He starts the acutche moya. He does acutia moya and now we see his grandfather. And, you know, he's talking about his grandfather. Yeah, we see the grandfather and they use this glamour filter in this flashback. Oh, okay. But the grandfather also has long hair. I don't know if it was natural or a wig, but this long, beautiful gray hair on his grandfather.

Starting point is 00:29:00 And with that glamour filter, I was like, this is like a shampoo commercial. I was like, wow, this is beautiful. Just looks, everybody looks so glamorous. Yes. And Jocote says, grandfather, you won't take your medicine, but yet your hair looks beautiful and rich. Exactly. What shampoo do you use, grandfather? I use Delta Quadrant Prel, of course.

Starting point is 00:29:26 All right. So we learned that the grandfather won't take his mask. The grandfather starts walking towards the cave. He walks into the cave, into the dark part of the cave where you can't see him anymore. Chakotay's like, where are you going? He says, where my spirit lives. Where my spirits are. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:29:43 And then he follows him around a corner and he loses his grandfather. He calls out, but he hears boxing in the caves. Starts to hear the bell and we go into the ring. Is this the same ring as the, as the. opening the earlier scene? Did they only have one ring? Because they must have only had one ring. I would think so too. But they lit it differently. Every time it's lit differently. It looks different. Yeah. It looked like and it wasn't a square shape like a typical ring. It was kind of a parallelogram of some kind. I don't know. It was a weird almost triangular shape. It was rhombus. Was it rhombus?

Starting point is 00:30:22 It was a rhombus maybe. We go, we're pulling stuff from ninth grade geometry. Yeah, exactly. Look, look how impressive we are. We can't remember what happened in this. episode, but we remember ninth grade geometry and the word rhombus. That's right. But yeah, the light was swinging around. Yeah. Like they had this moving light. I thought that was very cool. Marvin did a lot of really great lighting in this episode. He did. He did a great job. He really did. Rick Colby with digging out some of these moments that we've already gone past, but just these moments on Chakotay. I think like when he went on the bridge, I don't know if you remember, but there was this sort of floating camera that was moving and framing him in a way that was very unconventional for us.

Starting point is 00:31:04 You know, Rick did a lot of cool things. Marvin did some great lighting. I thought this episode looked really good. I think both Rick and Marvin pulled out all the stops and they really pulled in different lenses, different angles, different approaches, definitely. And it keeps you on your toes. You're definitely not, you're not, you don't feel comfortable when you're watching this episode. You're like, what is happening? What, you know, why is this? Just follow the hair. Yeah, follow the hair. You'll know where you are. Hey, Gary. Jared, have you been traveling this summer? Oh my gosh, so much already.

Starting point is 00:31:32 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,

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Starting point is 00:32:38 Taxes and fees extra. See MintMobile for details. So now he wakes up and he wakes up in sick bay. And he says that the aliens were there watching him, trying to tell him something. And the doctor tells him, you know, you've got to stop fighting. You know, you need to open your money. mind up and let go. And all of a sudden, he starts chanting chaotic space intersects hours at the 18th dimensional gradient. Voyager entered through a trimetric fracture. We must escape or

Starting point is 00:33:09 we will be destroyed. We've got to alter the warp field, retrylic trajectories. So a bunch of techno babble that neither you or I have heard of before. No, we've never heard it. Yeah, we don't know what's going on. And it's coming out almost like robotic. It is robotic, yes. It's like, you know, intersects R. 18th directional gradient, alter our warfield, retrylic. Yeah, it's very, he sounded like the robot from Captain Proton almost. Almost. You know? Yeah. And then at the very, at the very end, he starts freaking out with the doctor. It's too much. He's too much. He can't take it. He can't take it. I'm losing my mind. He's afraid he's like his grandfather. Yes. Yes. And, but what we don't know is he's not really, he's still in the, he's still in the vision quest. This is what's

Starting point is 00:33:54 confusing. Yeah. And I don't know the answer to this, but did Chacote know that he had this gene before this episode? Yes. Oh, wait a minute. Maybe he didn't because the doctor tells us about it. So we don't, but I felt like he was briefed by Chacote, but we don't see that in the scene, though. That's, we come to, we must assume that that's already happened. We have a bit of a passage of time in sick bay, and now Janeway is being briefed by the doctor. Janeway gives Chikote, a pep talk, basically. Well, because the doctor says medically he can do this. Like, he's not going to, you know, it's just his fear.

Starting point is 00:34:30 So now the doctor tells him to focus on the alien voices. He says he can't hear them. The doctor tries to bring him back to the vision quest in the boxing ring. Of hypnotizing him almost. Basically. Talking him and who was there? Who was there? Where were you?

Starting point is 00:34:44 What was happening? Right. And it's very, like you said before, very gentle kind of hypnotic doctor time. And the opponent is kid chaos. I love the use of the word chaotic space. We have kid chaos. And now we have Tuvok and a security detail that are that they, you know, they've got their phaser rifles and their phasers trained on the opponent. Tuvok's like Thompson and Schar, midsection, aim for the midsection, McAllister, aim for the head. Aim for the head. Duvok is hardcore here. And, you know, Chiquet is giving the orders to fire set to kill. But

Starting point is 00:35:20 Boothby intervenes. He's like, well, that's not very gentlemanly to kill them to kill this guy. And Chacote stands down. He says, stand down. Now he's not outside the ring. He's in the ring. And he's got his robe on his boxing robe. And it says the Machi Mahler on the back of his. The opponent has chaos, kid chaos in the back of his. And so Chacote is ready for, you know, for the boxing match. And Paris all of a sudden pops in. He's at the side of the ring. And he's getting. giving all of these odds. And I love, I love this. Now, I guess in the future, it's not just Vegas,

Starting point is 00:35:57 but now Mars is a big gambling destination and Orion 3. Orion 3, yeah, he's got, I got Vegas, Mars, and Orion 3 odds. I love it. Basically, the odds stink, by the way. They do stink. But I noticed, well, you, you were doing an affected voice, though, weren't you? A little bit. Yeah, you were kind of, hey, you're kind of doing a 1920s newsreau,

Starting point is 00:36:18 kind of like a voice with a. Well, so did the doctor. I noticed he did that later. He doesn't later, yes. So I'm wondering if you two saw each other. One of you saw the other perform and thought, oh, I could do that voice. Maybe, yeah. Maybe, who knows?

Starting point is 00:36:31 A little bit of a, yeah. Yes. Jimmy Cagney kind of moves real. It was Cagney-esque. And then you take off, you're a little, you know, perturbed and you're gone. But Neelix quickly interrupts and he jumps in. And again, you know, we're everything's very confusing. You don't know what's going.

Starting point is 00:36:51 Follow the hair. Yeah, follow the hair. And now we're on the bridge. And now, you know, Chacote's working a punching bag. He's punching at it and everything right on the center of the bridge. That was very cool. When I saw that scene, I did remember being on the bridge with this, how they had to stabilize that thing.

Starting point is 00:37:07 And just the lighting was very theatrical. It was a very cool scene up on the bridge with his hallucinations. My note here is what I think was really intelligent was that Colby decided to, because chaotic space, all your sensors are wrong, right? So what you think is left is really right. What you think is up is really down. Everything's opposite or not even anywhere close to what you thought it was. And the same thing happens in this punching scene because you see Harry interrupting from the briefing room and that from the angle that he's looking at and Harry says a few things and Chakotay says, you'll be fine. And then he punches again and the briefing room appears again,

Starting point is 00:37:46 not from where you think it should, but from the other side of his perspective. It's just, it's so, um, it's very disoriented. Oh, it's so disoriented. And truly, uh, that was the most effective way to shoot this because it matched the actual situation that we were in, you know, in space, in that chaotic space area. Because you hear Janeway interrupt. Then you hear Torres interrupt. Then the doctor appears on a side station monitor. So all these disorienting. camera moves. Yeah, first the doctor's on the side station. Then we jump back in the ring.

Starting point is 00:38:20 All of a sudden, he's back in the ring. And the doctor's there with a lab coat on. Well, he's on the side station. He's got the lab coat. But then we jump back and we see a shot of Chiquet being massaged. You notice that? Yeah. And then now the die, then after that must quick little shot of the, of Chikote being massaged, it then shows the doctor in his lap coat, in the ring, doing his little affected voice. Yes, doing his Jimmy Cagney voice. Yeah. He, he. he cagnie's it for you. And then now we jump to engineering and he's on the second level. By the way, the massage.

Starting point is 00:38:55 Yeah. When Beltran's getting the massage, Neilix is giving a massage. Right. He gets up and leaves the massage shirtless. He does. I did notice that. He was shirtless in the one scene.

Starting point is 00:39:07 The way he got up, all you got to see was his back. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, you didn't get to see his chest or his. But I mean, he can't do a massage with a shirt. That's correct. He couldn't. That's the one thing that he was illegal. It's illegal. Okay. So now we are in engineering on the second level and he's being followed by Nelix. Neelix is up there. Torres is looking on. She doesn't have any lines. Again, very disorienting, very weird, you know, situations that we see Chakotay in. And now we jump from engineering to the caves. And the grandfather reappears. The grandfather is translating for the aliens, basically.

Starting point is 00:39:45 he now jumps back in the ring and he tells booth be he's afraid chikote says i'm afraid i'm afraid the doctor talks in a voice um saying that the fight is is over it's canceled on medical grounds what so all this stuff is happening um and then paris and the doctor are there to revive chikote in his quarters and now we realize all that has transpired has still been part of the vision quest and we find out that he was stuck in the vision quest. He's revived by the doctor in Paris. He's on the floor of his quarters, and he wants back in the ring. He's like, I need to get back in there, and the doctor sedates him because he's getting

Starting point is 00:40:25 a little cuckoo again. He's getting a little crazy. So now we drop to the bridge. We are dropping beacons as we go at impulse, and Paris says we should increase speed. It's logical, and he says all these things, and Tuvac agrees with Paris. He's like, well, first they're disagreeing. And then Harris is like, no, it's logical. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:40:46 And then Tuvok's like, like, yes, you are. Yes, I concede to Tom, Tom's argument is logical. Yes. And then Paris is like, finally. I know. Finally he wins one. And Janeway agrees. But before we can increase speed, Harry shows that the first beacon that we dropped three hours ago is now in front of us.

Starting point is 00:41:05 So we've basically been doing a big circle. Big circle, exactly. We now know that we are in trouble. There's nothing that we can do to get out of this place. And we now go to astrometrics. Seven has found a pattern in chaotic space, an isolinear frequency. And Janeway surmises it could be transmission. And, you know, it's really funny because this scene, just the way it's written, too,

Starting point is 00:41:36 because the end of this scene, she sits there, Janeway looks and goes, impossible. And to think that kept me from getting an A. And then you're thinking, what the hell is you talking about? What are you talking about? Then we're in sickbay and now we know the answer to the impossible statement. And she says, the only question that I missed in exogenetics, my senior year, the nucleotide resonance frequency. And it's like, okay, so now here we go. This is what's going on.

Starting point is 00:42:05 This signal was designed to activate DNA, this nucleotide resonance. frequency. And Chuck Hote wakes up at the hearing of this, and he's upset about the stopping of the fight. He says that, you know, the doctor's the reason why he couldn't continue the fighting, and he's flipping out again. He's having another episode. And Jacote says that they're trying to contact him. And Janeway then says, wait a minute, they, who? There's aliens here? And Jacote's, yes, they're trying to contact me. So Janeway starts theorizing that the aliens and chaotic space are basically inducing hallucinations that try to communicate. Because this is the only way that they can communicate. They can't. Well, she figures this out because the other crew was also

Starting point is 00:42:50 hallucinations. She's like, wait a minute. This can't be a coincidence. Why are they? Yeah, it's not a coincidence. Why? Yeah, the other crew was hallucinating the same way. Yes. And she says, Chikote's bad gene is what gave them the opportunity to make this, this communication to reach out to Cote. So Chacote says, well, let me back in the ring. Either way, they're going to be stuck there. And Chacote does say in this scene, when did we ever turn down, turn away from a first opportunity for a first contact? Yeah. And that's kind of what gets her because she's all about her.

Starting point is 00:43:20 That definitely sells her. So he, she sends them back in the ring. But meanwhile, Tuvok, you know, hails the captain saying that Graviton cheers are increasing. She says she'll be right there. We do, we do pick it up in the bridge where we see Harry saying some kind of spatial sinkhole opened up beneath us, Janeway. That's not good. No.

Starting point is 00:43:38 Jane, we orders. full thrusters. Paris acknowledges we do avoid getting sucked into that sinkhole. But of course, our situation is dire at this point. And we jump back to the sick bay. And the doctor says he will subject Chocote to a field that will enhance the nucleotide bonds. And the gene should become fully activated. So before we learn of the suppression of this gene, and now we find that the solution would be to completely activate 100%. So I guess that sort of answers my question. It's possible to reverse this.

Starting point is 00:44:14 It's possible to the doctor's able to do it. By the way, he uses this prop, this tool that I don't think I ever saw before, a blue light on it or something. And I was just thinking, like nowadays, LED lights are so common and used all the time on props and TV shows and things. We even use LED lights for lighting.

Starting point is 00:44:34 We use them for this podcast. for our lights. That's all LEDs. That's right. But when we did the show, LEDs were not a thing. We didn't have any of that. No. So that tool with a light was not an LED.

Starting point is 00:44:47 I don't know what it was, but it looked kind of like when I saw it, I was like nowadays that would be an LED in that light, you know, much smaller and all that. But whatever it was, Bob Picardo was probably super excited to have a new toy. A new toy, exactly. Oh, yeah, he loves that.

Starting point is 00:45:04 So, you know, the jeans should become fully activated. Now Chocote starts hearing the bell of the rock boxing ring. Now he's in the ring with Boothby at his corner. By the way, he's back in the ring. Did you notice his outfit at this point? Chocotes? Yeah, now I was following the hair, but this is, he had on this like purple, shiny. It looked like a legit, like boxer, purply.

Starting point is 00:45:31 It was very flashy. I don't know. I noticed this. His outfit was different. His robe thing? I guess it was his robe or whatever, but I hadn't seen it before. It was like it's Showtime. Yeah, but it does appear once very briefly in a prior scene, though.

Starting point is 00:45:46 Oh, it does. Yeah, we do see it for a second. I didn't notice it before. This time I was like, whoa. This time you totally saw it. You're probably writing notes at the time for that slash second that you missed it. So he's in the ring and he goes to the corner where Boothby is there. And, you know, he's hesitant.

Starting point is 00:46:02 but Boothby says you're up against yourself. That's all you've got to remember. Now we go back into sickbay and the aliens are trying to speak. But the only thing keeping you from understanding them is your own fear. And this is what the doctor is telling him. So in a way, Boothby and the doctor are kind of interchanging as the guide for Chigote. And so he says, you know, you're not understanding them because you're afraid. your fear you have fear of losing control you have fear of the unknown and and frankly jacote

Starting point is 00:46:36 thinks he's going to die he thinks if this gene is activated he's just going to he's going to go bonkers and this is the end of his life um but from the doctors cajoling he does let go a little bit um and he all the sudden he starts hearing things the 18th gradient trimetric fracture we have to modify our deflector we have to induce a parallel rentrillic trajectory of all this technical babel starts coming out again from now i had i had a little logic bump here so let's just go back to round one of the fight he's fighting uh kid chaos yeah but kid chaos in that fight doesn't take his robe off he's got the hood up and everything correct and when we see kid chaos it's chaotic space instead of a face there yes it's this black you know he looks like a ghost almost fighting chokote in the ring and

Starting point is 00:47:28 During the fight, Chakote starts having these hallucinations of words of the crew start jumping out, you know, to try to communicate. Basically, it seems to me like the alien can't communicate in its language or can't translate it. So it's using other moments in his memory. In his memory. So for example, it's all these lines from earlier scenes, which I wrote down a really cool way to communicate. from the alien. If you stay in chaotic space, you'll be destroyed, things like that. But the if you is from the doctor and stay is from Tuvok, you know, it jumps around. And they use everybody. They use your voice. Everybody. Yeah, everybody. But here's my logic bump. So if the alien can only

Starting point is 00:48:17 communicate with what people have said before, then when, when Chukotay is sitting in sickbay and starts getting more of the message. He starts saying things like 18th gradient, trimetric fracture. My point is, Chocote starts saying words that none of our crew ever said before. So if they're only communicating with things that were said in his memory, he can't be hearing these new words. No. I was like, wait a minute. Wait a minute. You set up a rule and now you just broke it because there's none of us ever said those words. So I don't know. I'm just saying. Look at you. Look at you. And you are Sherlock Holmes on this episode. I'm very impressed. It was a little bump for me. I hear you. And I didn't I didn't get it at first. I was like, oh yeah, this is cool.

Starting point is 00:49:08 Yeah. Wait a minute. But can he be hearing these words? We never said. We didn't say retrilic. We didn't say bilateral. We definitely, in fact, we've never said that at any episode. Never. Yeah. right. I don't know how he got. But maybe maybe they up their game and you know, we're figured it out. I don't know. Yeah. Let's just say that they took the beginning of other words like Harrison. Remember and they took the R from remember and yeah. Okay. Trill it. It's something figured. They figured it out. Okay. Let's let's just say that's give him the benefit. Good. So now, you know, he is he he feels like he solved it. But it's it's, it's, he's afraid that if he doesn't act

Starting point is 00:49:48 on it now, all this information is going to disappear. So he runs out of sick bay, heads to the bridge. The doctor is chasing after him. He comes on to the bridge. He tells Harry to move. And he did tell Harry to move, but Harry didn't move very fast. So he shoves him. And I remember that when we filmed this, the day that we filmed this, he really, he really hit me pretty hard. And I was just like, oh my God, I might have to go. I might have to go to the hospital. I'm like, what did he just do? But, you know, his character is. frantic. So it's understandable, but Garrett Wong was pretty upset that his friend Robert Beltran hit him at that day. Kind of like when you used to shove me by craft services, it was one of

Starting point is 00:50:28 those days. I was like, what the heck? He moves me aside. He makes the necessary adjustments to the deflector. Tom is worried, like, you know, a course shows up, but Tom's like, well, we might end up dying if we take this course. If he's wrong, yeah, if he's wrong, we could die. Yeah, we could be dead. And so Janeway's like, yeah, she looks at Chocote with her J.C. love. There was a lot of J.C. love in this. There was a lot of J.C. love in this. Yeah. So the J.C. love made her say, do it. Follow the course. And then you do.

Starting point is 00:51:03 You did it. And we could outside to space. Yeah. We see us going through this mirror chaos. It was very cool. Yes. It was very cool. Yes. And then Chacote, after it's all done, we're in the clear, he kind of, he stumbles a little bit and almost fall. Falls. Janeway catches him with the doctor. J.C. Moment. J.C. moment. J.C. moment right right there. And then next thing we know, where they're in the corridor, Janeway and Chakotay are talking. He's dressed in boxing stuff. And he's, Janeway's like, wait a minute. I gave you some days off. He's like, well, these boxing simulations, they help me unwind. This is my way of dealing with stress. And she's like, okay, well, I guess I'll see you on the bridge bright and early tomorrow. Sure you don't want to read a book or something. Yeah. Just relax a little. It doesn't. No, he doesn't. No. you're going to box. No, he's going to box. So he, he, uh, he goes to the holiday. He starts up Tricote training program 15 beta. And now we're back in the boxing gym. Boothby comes over and

Starting point is 00:51:59 asks if he's ready. And he gets in the gym. I like how it ends. It ends really just kind of like, yeah, with a punch to the camera. Yeah, it was two left jabs and a right cross. And the right cross ends the episode. And a really loud sound effect of the punch, which we never end like that. Like that's It was a very cool ending, and I was pretty excited to see that ending. Yeah. Yeah. Very fun. Okay.

Starting point is 00:52:24 Do you have a lesson from this entire episode? Yeah, I do. The lesson I wrote down is push past your fears. Yes. That was what I got. It's like, you know, Chocote was really afraid of the unknown of what if I accept this part of me. What if I fight this fight that maybe I'm not. able to handle or whatever. So push past your fears. There's gifts there. You know, don't be foolish.

Starting point is 00:52:54 But, you know, your fear is just something to remind you to take care of yourself. But it's also, it's a bridge to something new. So yeah. Yeah. That's my, that's my theme. Okay. I'm going to go with a very similar lesson. And really, it's just to remember that at times you need to let go. And when you're holding on to something too tight and you're trying to make everything right, it sometimes makes it wrong. You know, when you try so hard to do something. And the answer is to let it go, to go the opposite. And really, I think the best analogy for me from sports is golf, like the golf swing.

Starting point is 00:53:36 The key really is when you try to hit the ball hard, it goes nowhere. The minute you just let the club swing itself, meaning lift it up and let it drop into place. If you allow it, if you let go of control and you allow things to happen, that's when it happens. That's when the magic happens. That's when the beauty comes out because anyone who tries to hit a golf ball will have a very varied success, but someone who lets go and allows the ball to make, it allows the club to make contact with the ball naturally, with the flow. You're going to be really happy with the results. So that's the analogy from sports that I'm going to throw there.

Starting point is 00:54:17 So really, let it go, let go. Okay. Yeah. My rating for this episode. Yes. I liked this episode. I think everybody did a good job. There was just something about it in the end that I was like, I don't know, it didn't

Starting point is 00:54:32 quite, I think maybe it was the jumping around. like I wasn't following the hair good enough because I don't know I felt a little confused time wise on the the sort of normal arc of an episode how it sort of starts with a problem and then there's some efforts and then the climactic moment and the lesson learned it all seemed a little disjointed to me okay so I'm I didn't love this episode I'm going to give it a six a solid six oh you drop that thing down yeah I did okay okay a lot of good work in here but it still for me didn't hold up to a bigger score so okay uh i'm gonna i'm gonna go a little higher i just i just like the whole bermuda triangle i used to live in bermuda so anytime i see

Starting point is 00:55:16 bermuda triangle themed films movies tv show episodes whatever i get a little excited so i'm gonna go seven point one so i'm gonna go higher i'm gonna nice higher all right well here i have let us know the captain and admiral average rating for the fight and you don't know these or you don't look at this before no no no all right i'm opening it now and i am reading 5.5 wow they went low they went we both were higher than wow they went higher they went out oh my goodness that may be the lowest rating average rating for since we've been doing these for any episode for anything yikes i'm still going to i'm going to go with a six there was enough would work in there that's better than that for me but um yeah so it seems like this is not

Starting point is 00:56:11 the favor the fan favorite no it's not the trilogy of terror no but it's not but we have we didn't do we didn't we didn't we didn't write anything back then so we don't know what those episodes would have come as but my goodness five point you said five point five five five yeah well and now you know that's an average so that means there's some people who threw maybe a four out or a three or a two maybe. Ouch. Painful. All right.

Starting point is 00:56:42 Okay. All right. Well, that's it. Thanks everybody. Yeah, thank you joining. That was fun. That was really fun. Join Robbie and I next week when we discuss, recap, and review, think tank.

Starting point is 00:56:55 Oh, think tank. Yeah. I like the name. Think tank. I do too. Yeah. Okay. I'm ready.

Starting point is 00:57:03 Thanks, everybody. See you next week. The Bhopal, Bhopal, Bhop, Bhopi, Bhopi,

Starting point is 00:57:17 Bhop, Bhopi. Bhopi, Bhopi, B, B, Bhopi. I'm going to be

Starting point is 00:57:28 B. B. B. B. B. B. B. B.

Starting point is 00:57:36 B. B. B. B. B. B. Thank you.

The Delta Flyers - The Fight

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