The Delta Flyers - The Storyteller

Episode Date: March 5, 2024

The Delta Flyers is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, Terry Farrell & Armin Shimerman. In each podcast release they will recap and discuss an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. This week’s episode is The Storyteller, hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, and Armin Shimerman.The Storyteller: O'Brien plays a pivotal role in the survival of a Bajoran village; a 15-year-old faction leader gets advice from Nog on settling a dispute.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Production Managers Megan Elise & Rebecca McNeillAdditionally we could not make this podcast available without our Executive Producers:Stephanie Baker, Jason M Okun, Marie Burgoyne, Kris Hansen, Janet K Harlow, Heidi Mclellan, Rich Gross, Mike Gu, Tara Polen, Vikki Williams, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Lisa Robinson, Alex Mednis, James H. Morrow, Roxane Ray, Andrew Duncan, David Buck, Feroza Mehta, Jonathan Brooks, Gemma Laidler, Matt Norris, Izzy Jaffer, & Jan HanfordOur Co-Executive Producers:Liz Scott, Eve England, Sab Ewell, Sarah A Gubbins, Luz R., Chris Knapp, Dannielle Kaminski, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Courtney Lucas,  Matthew Gravens, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Mary Jac Greer, E & John, Deike Hoffmann, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Tom Paynter, Jenna Appleton, Lee Lisle, Sarah Thompson, Holly Smith, Amy Tudor, Mark G Hamilton, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Mary Burch, Sandra Stengel, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Tim Beach, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, Holly Schmitt, Tae Phoenix, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Daniel O’Brien, Danie Crofoot, Ian Ramsey, Steven Lugo, Rob Traverse, Penny Liu, Mars DeVore, Stephanie Lee, Lisa Hill, David Smith, Stacy Davis, & Sam MikelicAnd our Producers:Philipp Havrilla, James Amey, Patrick Carlin, Richard Banaski, Ann Harding, Meredith Hudes-Lowder, Trip Lives, Samantha Weddle, Chloe E, Paul Johnston, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Jocelyn Pina, Mike Fillmon, Chad Awkerman, Mike Schaible, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Maxine Soloway, Barbara Beck, Dat Cao, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Cindy Ring, Alicia Kulp, Kelly Brown, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Samantha Hunter, Jamason Isenburg, Rob Johnson, Maria Rosell, Heather Choe, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Dominique Weidle, Justin Weir, Jesse Bailey, Mike Chow, Kevin Hooker, Matt Edmonds, Ryan Benoit, John Richardson, Heather Selig, Rachel Shapiro, Clark Ochikubo, David J Manske, Seth Carlson, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, E.G. Galano, Tim Neumark, Will Forg, Ryan Tomei-Sigurðarson, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, James Lyszczek, Russell Nemhauser, Lawrence Green, Greg Kenzo Wickstrom, Lisa Gunn, Lauren Rivers, Jennifer B, Dean Chew, Linda Daireaux, Jennifer Vaughn, Walkerius Logos, PJ Pick, Preston Meyer, Ryan Mahieu, Andrew Cook-Feltz, Karen Galleski, Rik Moran, Constance, Loretta Reyes, Jeremy McWilliams, & Timothy McMichensThank you for your support!“Our creations are protected by copyright, trademark and trade secret laws. Some examples of our creations are the text we use, artwork we create, audio, and video we produce and post. You may not use, reproduce, distribute our creations unless we give you permission. If you have any questions, you can email us at [e-mail].”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

Greetings, everyone. Welcome to the Delta Flyers journey through the wormhole with Quark, Dax, and their good friends, Tom and Harry. Join us as we journey through episodes of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Your hosts along this journey are Terry Farrell, our enchanting science officer, Armin Shimmerman, our beloved entrepreneur, Garrett Wong, our forever Ensign and myself, your favorite helmsman, Robert Duncan McNeil. Today we have Armin. Armin, welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Happy to be here. Great to see you. And Garrett, good to see you, sir. Yes, sir. Good to see you as well. I was so confused with, I thought that was actually Armin's house, but that's his, that's his green screen.

That's a fake background. That's a green screen. Yes. That's a little part, bit of my Shakespearean Library behind me, actually. It's a tiny bit of it. Some very important reference books for me are behind me. It's a picture. It's not the actual thing. It's a photo of your Shakespearean library.

Armand, have you ever seen Ethan Phillips Library? No, but I imagine it's extensive because he's an avid reader. Yes. When I look at yours, it reminds me of Ethan Phillips. He's an avid reader and a book collector of, you know, first editions and really obscure and very interesting stuff. He's got an awesome library. I bet yours is equally awesome.

No, I don't think it is, but I probably have less novels than he does. Most of my books are reference books. I see. Okay. I have a pretty good library. Gary, you've seen my library. Yeah, yeah, you do.

You've got a lot of books. Megan has, as many books as a library has, I think. Megan has so many. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my goodness. It's insane. But all, you know, both of you, All of us, I think, are avid readers, or we enjoy reading.

What else are we going to do with our free time? Yeah, exactly. I suppose you can write novels, but you should read them, yes. Speaking of avid readers, Armin is a writer. He's a novelist, and I want to make sure everybody knows that. Yes. Thank you, thank you. He should be reading Armin's books.

You're right. He's an amazing writer. You're right. Thank you. I have two sets of books. Each of them are trilogies. first trilogy is a science fiction and the second set of trilogy is the is a political mystery about Shakespeare's times and including mostly historical people but also some fictional

people as well everybody's got to check those out by the way armin i do have a message from forosa meta to you she went to the guthrie bookstore look for your books and they are sold out so you need to make sure they get some work oh my goodness yes that's good news and i will get in touch with for the Guthrie and say, hey, it's time to reorder some of my books. Yes. What was the last book that both of you read that you enjoyed a lot, the most recent book? The George Washington book by Ron Cerno, the biography, George Washington. Yes, by Ron Zornowna.

Yes, by Ron Zerno. Got it. Armand? I'm reading a book right now by a man named, I believe it's Mike Heron, and he's the man who wrote the Slow Horses books that Slow Horses, the TV show. If you haven't seen Slow Horses, by the way, you have to watch it. It was, in my opinion, absolutely the best show on TV presently. And it's a wonderfully written book, both about MI5, but also it's just incredibly, the way he's a great word smith.

He puts words together, phenomenally one. I love authors who are great with language. Yeah, this one is. To picture and surprise you as you're reading the book. Yeah. Wonderful. I love to hear that. Right on.

Well, for everybody. listening to this podcast we just want to remind you if you want the extended version of this podcast with lots of amazing extra bonus material sign up at patreon.com forward slash the delta flyers and get your extra stuff yes it's worth your weight in latinum exactly well said harman well said i like that you have any birthdays garret yes we do have birthday a not birthdays but plural, but singular. So let's, let's all three of us individually say, happy birthday to Stacey Davis. Happy birthday, Stacey. Happy birthday, Stacey. Happy birthday, Stacey Davis. Mark 7th. This is a tiny bit extenuated, so bear with me. Yes. I did some research on Wikipedia,

and I wanted to know more about the idea of storytelling because this episode is called The Storyteller. So with your permission, I will read what I took down from Wikipedia. It says, storytelling intertwined with the development of mythologies, predates writing. The earliest forms of storytelling were usually oral combined with gestures and expressions. Some archaeologists believe that rock art is also in addition to a role in religious festivals. and it may have served as a form of storytelling for many ancient cultures. The Australian people painted symbols,

which also appear in stories on cave walls as a means of helping the storyteller remember the story. The story was then told using a combination of oral, narrative, music, rock art, and dance, which brings understanding and meaning to a human existence through the remembrance and enactment of stories. Thank you. Wow. Well described. Very well said. You know what this makes me think of?

Your description of storytelling reminds me of my high school drama teacher who was and still is a profound influence on me, Linda Wise. She brought in a couple of storytellers once that she had seen perform and tell stories at the storytelling festival in Tennessee. They came in to our theater class and told stories and talked about storytelling and how it sort of relates. acting and performing. And it was just fascinating. I was, I was just amazed at how someone could capture and take you through a journey all by themselves. No sets, no lights, no props. They just sat on a chair or stood and told a story. And it was, it was just captivating. I'd never seen anything like it. They were amazing storytellers. So yeah, what you describe is exactly what I remember experiencing. And certainly all art forms in a sense come from storytelling. Certainly the Iliad

and the Odyssey were stories that were eventually written down by various authors, although we call those various authors Homer. It is what we do. We are storytellers. We are part of the team that tells stories as entertainment and as education. Armand, we had an episode of Voyager that was about a planet where stories were the most valuable, you know, they, they cherished stories. That was their latinum. That was their latinum. Stories. Yeah.

Yeah. And wasn't it Chakote that had the stories? Or wasn't he the one that went down there? And I can't remember. I think that was Bologna. Remember, she was crash landed on that planet and that guy kept coming back. Tell me more about your stories. That's right.

That's right. So that was the Lord. But Star Trek, yes. Star Trek has definitely, you know, visited. this idea of storytelling as a human connector. One of the great things about the acting community that I've noticed over the several years that I've been involved in it is that actors,

besides on stage and on film telling stories, they love to tell stories about experiences that they've had or seen. And those stories get retold over and over over. I know that I have stories from older actors who've probably since passed away that I repeat to young actors because they were such wonderful stories

that I heard from older actors. Yeah, that's true, absolutely. My haiku for the storyteller. Ben to mediate, Chief must repel the Dow Rock. Nog falls for Varus. That's wonderful. You know, your structure,

the story points that you hit in the order you hit them is almost identical to my. Oh, my limerick structure story points. If I were the teacher and you were the students, I would, I would accuse both of you of collaborating. I know, wouldn't you? But we didn't. Okay, let's hear it. Here we go.

Here's my limerick. All right. Cisco must negotiate with his best diplomatic technique. Around Varus, Nog forgets how to speak. O'Brien tries to tell the story, but Hovath gets all the glory. and Nog finally gets a kiss on the cheek. Really good. I like that one.

I started with Cisco, went to the O'Brien, and then finished with Nog. It was exactly the same beats. The same beats. There you go. Now, I'm just going to give you a little background since neither one of you wore prosthetics that probably after Vera's kissed Nog, the makeup person, her makeup person probably had to come over and take all that orange off of her lips. yes in order for them to do the next thing yes well in this episode don't you get a drink thrown

in your on your prosthetics you veris throws a cocktail or her bubbly water yes but everything is you know sealed so that that probably didn't cause a lot of problems yeah yeah probably enough for my makeup artist the wonderful karen westerfield to uh throw a hissy fit but um sure it wasn't too I thought about that. Whenever Nogg sits at that railing and you see his hands grasping one of the bars there, is he leaving orange on the railing too? Yes. It's everywhere. It depends on how well you seal the packs. Yeah. So if the packs is really sealed, it shouldn't leave anything. And it may be that Aaron is not gripping it as hard as you think he is in order to, you know. To not leave it there. Yeah. How do they seal it, Armin? It's a spray. Isn't it a sealant?

The sprays? No, it's actually, as I remember, was a lot of powder. It was a lot of baby powder. Okay, so teleplay for this episode by Kurt Michael Benzmiller and Iris Stephen Bear. Do you remember Kurt Benzmiller? Not at all. But understand for the first three years of our show, we never intermingled with the writers, ever. Yeah, we didn't really either.

Kurt Michael Benzmiller originally pitched this story for this episode during the first season of Star Trek Next Generation. Wow. Yeah, it was a TNGG pitch, and they didn't buy the pitch. So what happened was Michael Pillar showed up to TNG season three. That script was sitting still in the offices. He read it, and he goes, I like it. He goes, I like it a lot.

And every season of TNG that went on season four, five, six, seven, he kept bringing it up, saying, hey, guys, can we do this for this show? And they would say, no. And so there was a no, no, no, no. But then once DS9 showed up, when they started doing DS9, I think they were scrambling for some scripts. And Pillar was like, hey, what about this one? And he finally. Yeah, he finally.

And then he reached out to Benz Miller. And he says to Benz Miller, hey, we're going to buy your idea. We need you to write the teleplay on this and go. And he had to do this, I think during Christmas time was when he was told to write this. And they were premiering the first episode, I guess, a couple months. later. So they hadn't even shown any of the episodes of DS9. And this writer had to adapt the story and throw it to your people. Now, the choice of Bashir and Brian being together was Ira Stephen Bears doing. He said, like, I want to put these guys together. And this is the episode

we're going to do it in. So that's how that happened. But it's interesting how this script had been sitting there for years, practically a decade almost, right? And then all of a sudden, bam, they use it for DS9. So there you go. Cool. Yeah. David Livingston directed this episode. This is his second episode for you guys, I think, now, right?

Right. Great job by David Livingston. I always like watching his episodes. The story behind this episode is based on Rudyard Kipling's short story, the man who would be king. Oh, interesting. I did not know that. It did feel, it felt something about, yeah.

It felt like it very. Yeah, maybe literary just because of the storytelling element or something. It didn't. I like this episode. I'll just go out on the limb and say I really enjoyed it. Well, it's also the first episode to show the beginning of the friendship between Bashir and O'Brien, which I love. Which does, am I right to say this, Armand, it does become very tight towards the end of the season. It's one of the more major relationships in our show.

Yeah. So would you say this is the Tom and Harry of DS9 in a way? I would say that, yes. Oh, look at that. Here we go. Except both of you are relatively equal in rank. Am I right in that? No. I understand. You are the lesser officer, not lesser, but the junior officer. But the junior officer, correct. So I am, yes. But in reality, it's flipped in terms of I see Julian being that innocent puppy dog like Harry Kim was. So even though he's higher in rank, I feel Harry's closer to Julian than Tom. Absolutely. Yes. It is one of our better. relationships and uh and and eventually it uh it changes it it it's always there but it drops off and i won't give anything away by saying basheer finds another companion that uh that he spends more

time talking but you'll see that as the episodes oh but i like this relationship and it's a good one and they did a great job and they're wonderful at it um but eventually the writers coupled bashear with somebody else it's not a deep dark secret garek becomes his confidom. Oh, really? Oh. Oh, that's very different too. Very, very different tone.

Exterior space shot. We've got a station long from Cisco. I really love that space shot. Oh, that's great. The camera was below the station shooting up. Yes. And I thought, oh, now it may have been done before, but that's the first time I noticed it from that angle.

Yeah. Yeah. And I went, oh, that's a great way to look at the station. Yeah. I feel like the last few hours. The last few episodes, they're in a real high point. I feel the Visifax guys, the Visifax team, they're in a high point of some of these space shots because I said the same thing on the last episode. We were talking with Terry about.

And I felt like the model shots and the space shots were phenomenal. Yeah, they're really good. Cisco says, the Bajoran government has asked me to mediate a disagreement between two rival factions, the Paku and the Navat. at issue is a land dispute, which could trigger a civil war. So we get the stakes right out of the gate. The first scene is in ops. We see that the Paku delegation is about to arrive. The Navat will be here in about an hour we learn.

And O'Brien asked Cisco if maybe he can be replaced on this away mission. O'Brien doesn't really want to go. Yeah. He wants Ensign Boyer to go. That's who he wants. I don't know who Ensign Boyer is. We don't even know Ensign Boyer. I don't know who Anson Boyer is.

I don't think we ever see I never met an ensign boy I love when they talk about these characters that don't exist that they don't exist but he doesn't grant that request Bashir arrives and there's a medical emergency and this entire

Bajoran village is in danger of extinction so we don't have the details exactly Bashir is super excited for the mission and very exciting yes it will give him a chance to get to know O'Brien better for them to both get to know each other better and you can just look at the face

that O'Brien makes, he's not happy that he's going on this thing. And it's clear that he's not a fan of Bashir. He's kind of like, he's annoyed by him, which is kind of surprised me. I did not, I never saw this before that O'Brien was irritated by Bashir. Yes, I didn't either. This felt like a brand new thing to me. I agree.

I think we're not writing well for Sid for Bashir at that time. I think they were trying to make him too much of an ingenue. and Sid is not an ingenuous. So he's very, I'm going to use this word, he's very loch, he's very laid back and, you know, relaxing on the couch. But I think over time they realized that was mistaken. And so even then, I guess the writers knew that

because O'Brien was not happy about being with Bashir. Yeah, yeah. I love the dynamic, but it felt new to me, but I loved it. It was a good setup. But we've seen him being fresh-faced and energetic and gee whiz all the time. And that got stale after a while. Yes.

And I just mentioned about that first shot, though, because we've never seen that angle before. David Livingston follows Cisco from behind as he descends into ops, which now gives us a true kind of glimpse into how tall, how much height there is in ops. Yeah, when you see it from up looking down, you see. Yes, because do you remember when we recall? recorded with Terry, Terry said,

Ops is, there's a lot of levels. It's high. And I kept thinking, it's not that high. But from this shot, it's very steep. Oh my gosh, you totally do. And I thought, wow, what a great shot that he chose to show everyone kind of the, the scale of Ops. He did some very bold shots in this.

Like, I'll mention one later on. And when we hit them, right? Yeah. It's just very unconventional, more cinematic than TV, you know, cookie cutter shots. And that's classic David Livingston. One of the things that this episode does that I don't remember ever happening again is it says to us, there are warring factions on Bejore. That's the first, watching this episode, I said to myself, does that ever happen again where

there's internal struggles on Bejore? Now, Bezoor has been occupied by the Kardashians for a long period of time. that's the primary conflict that I remember mostly from Deep Space Nine. This idea that there are two warring factions arguing over property rights, that's the only time I think this is mentioned in our series during the course of seven years. Interesting, about the Bajorans. Yeah, I always thought of them as a unified group against Cardassian. But then you start to see these more subgroups and tribalism going on that I, yeah,

I don't remember ever being referenced before. So great point. I find it interesting that back to back, we have two episodes about warring factions. And this one, not only does it have it about the Paku and the Navit, but it also has it regarding the village that we go down to as well. Because the history of that village where Bashir and. Yeah, they were fighting amongst themselves. There were civil unrest there too. So it's two back-to-back episodes of just strife.

What's going on with these writers that they just think everybody can't get along? Yeah. Well, that is the essence of our show about people who shouldn't be able to get along, find ways to get along. Right. That is essential to Deep Space Nine. So they're in the turbo lift. Cisco and Kira are together.

And Cisco wants this first meeting between the Paku and the Navat leaders to be informal, just to get them talking to each other. Kira says just getting them to sit down together is an accomplishment. And she talks about a Bajoran saying that the people and the land are one, and that the land that is inhabited by the Paku, and the novit is some of the harshest on Bayjor. She's like saying they're as ruthless as the land that they live on. They are the badasses.

They're going to be so scary. I love this set. This turbillow scene is basically a setup for a joke. It's a setup for the airlock scene next. And as they come into the airlock, the airlock tour opens. And we see an older, tall, distinguished bejoran gentleman walkout. And he steps to the side to reveal the 15-year-old leader. of the Paku, Varas Seul.

And we're thinking, what? Did a little research, because I was wondering how old this character was supposed to be, supposed to be 15. But in real life, the actress, Gina Phillips, was 22 when she filmed this. Oh, wow. Yeah, so she's not a teenager. But she looks very young. She looks very young, yes.

But she was a great actress. I thought she was great. Oh, for sure. I loved Kara and Cisco's faces. They see the little girl. She introduces herself as the Tetrarch of the Paku. And she's very confident and a little combative in her introducing herself. For sure.

Yeah, we go into the runabout now with O'Brien and Bashir. Bashir is, I love it. He's super chatty. He's just like Mr. Chattie, Chattie Kathy. He wants to know if O'Brien doesn't like him because O'Brien has been silent and hasn't been talking to him. And O'Brien sort of avoids a straight answer. And he says, he was just thinking. And Bishir says, oh, what were you thinking about?

And O'Brien covers and makes up, he says, oh, a diagnostic I need to run when I get back to the station. Oh, by the way, when Bashir asks, O'Brien, what were you thinking about? Yeah. Rebecca turned to me and she goes, that's just like you, honey. You always say to me, what are you thinking? What do you think? Which is, yeah, I'm like to Bishir. What are you thinking about?

What do you think? Tell me what you're thinking. I do that all the time. And do you give the same response that Cullum gave? Yeah. Yeah. Well, Rebecca is the column in this situation. Right.

And I'm the Bashir. Yes. And yes, she does make up something. She responds like, she'll make it up. Yes, exactly. I love how at the end, though, he's like, you know what? It's not necessary to call me, sir. He's like, oh, well, what would you like me to call you?

How about just Julian? Well, okay, is that an order or am I? You know, what do you want? What do you want to? It's so funny. This scene is, it's a good starting scene for these two, this, this relationship that is blossoming. Yeah. And he says, you don't have to call me, sir, call me Julian. Then we go to a space shot. They approach the planet. We go back in the runabout. And O'Brien says, we've achieved stable orbit around Bejor. We can beam down any time, Julian.

Column is an extraordinary actor. His comic timing was perfect on that. Yeah. Am I right? He's so good. I'm so impressed. That's tough to do. Am I right, Robbie? In terms of having the timing to put that pause in for just enough. Just knowing exactly how to make something out of a pretty straightforward line.

Oh, God. It turned it into something. Such a good job. And I love, you know, Armand, you had mentioned to us before that Colm and Sid both learned their lines very last minute. Now, whether they were doing it in the first season, I don't know. But certainly in later seasons, it was always a surprise to me that neither one. of them even knew what the scene was about when they came in to read it in front of the director. That's how good they were. They were able to synthesize everything that they'd

learned from the director's rehearsal and have it memorized and figured out in their minds in the 20 minutes or so it took to light the scene. Extraordinary. Extraordinary. I would be terrified. I couldn't do it. No, I could. And didn't. No. We go to the Village Square and And Bashir and O'Brien beamed down into this town square. And it's called the town square, I guess, but it's really a big circle. It's not a square. The town circle, they should call it. The town circle.

Yes. Bashir scans around the area but finds nothing dangerous. They were expecting that everyone was in danger. This was an emergency. Right. But they're like, what's going on? There's nothing here. A man runs up.

His name is Farin. Jim Jensen. Jim Jansen. Jim Jensen, who I had worked with extensively on another project. So I was very happy to see Jim Jansen there. He was great. He was awesome. By the way, that village, the Seurat's village, was constructed on stage 18.

Yes. And Herman Zimmerman, the production designer, had seven days to construct that. Well, the last episode was all in the cave set. And where that circle is, is where the shuttle crashed. So they had to get the shuttle out of there and all that debris and the fire. torches. They'd get all that out of there and build that circle. Wow. Yeah. And the company was off the stage for only three of the seven days. So they only had three days really to do that, which is insane. It is extraordinary that the set designers, the costume designers, both get this script

maybe a week, 10 days at the very most, but a week before we actually start shooting. They have to design it. They have to come up with the concept. They have to get their crew in there to do the work, to sew the costumes, to build the sets, and get it all done in time to start the episode in a week. And for us, for the actors, I don't know about you guys, if we were lucky to get the scripts 48 hours before we started shooting an episode. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we would get it a day, maybe the day before, maybe, like you said, two days, if you were lucky before you started. The exterior shots of the village were reused from a next generation two-parter, birthright part one, in Birthright Part 2.

Oh, interesting. This is interesting. Dan Curry created the final scene by inserting shots of the miniature into jungle photographs he had taken in Laos in the 1960s. Those Peace Corps trips he took were very productive.

He's got a lot of photos. He has a lot, doesn't he? Yeah. All right. Well, so they're in this town circle. Ferencag Cog runs up, introduces himself much better than I introduced him. And he says,

This village is in great jeopardy, even though they just had the readings that nothing's dangerous. Right. They have to go quickly. So we go inside this chamber where they find this old man in bed and Farron asks this other pejorant, Hovath, who will get to know more later. Yeah. Asked Hovath if he's improved, but Hobass says no. And now Brian wants to know where the other sick people are. Like if this village is in such a danger, where's the other sick people?

And Farron goes, no, no, no, no. There's no other sick people. but if he dies, Sarah, this guy in bed. If he dies, we all die. Yeah. Very mysterious. It's very mysterious.

The actor that played Sarah is K.E. Cutter or Cooter. I don't know how you pronounce that, but he looks so familiar to me. Yeah, he's me too. He has done a lot of stuff. If you look at his resume and also, he comes from a Hollywood family. So even his parents were already doing it even back then. And another thing that's interesting is, do you remember how early episodes of,

Bajoran had a different ridge on their, an extra thing on their forehead. A lot of these background Bajoran in this village have the same old school horizontal ridge. Yes. Interesting. Make up note. Well, we go into Quark's back room here. Like, I guess it's a private dining area of some kind.

Armin, is that what it is? I don't know. You know, I'm not sure it is part of Quarks. It might be a meeting room for the station. Because that sort of room shows up often, actually, in the course of the seven years, Deep Space Nine. I just assume since you brought the drinks in that it was like a little, like, private dining area or something. Cork could have been catering the party.

Room service kind of thing. Room service, yeah. I'm not sure where it takes place. Interesting. Okay. So in this mystery room, there are two rival Bajorans, Wobon, who is an older man. He's the Navut. He's the Navet, played by Jordan Lund.

and varus this teenage girl who is sitting with cisco and kira and cisco wants to get kind of an inform have an informal get together before official negotiations start later that night we learned that in the scene that this river that divided their territory was diverted by the cardassians yeah dang cardassians yeah for mining stuff they had to divert an entire river and so it changed the the dividing point of these two groups and now the Paku have more land. And so Varus says that that's how the treaty reads, wherever the river is. And so she's kind of holding firm to the treaty. And this guy, Wobon wants their land back now that the Cardassians are gone. Quark arrives. He's got everybody a drink. He seems to give everyone an alcoholic beverage. And then he gets to Varus. And he says, he gives her her Trixian bubble juice for the little lady. he says. Just the name itself.

Trixian bubble juice. It's so like, so I love it. Childish. It's like a Shirley Temple. A Shirley Temple for the little lady. She doesn't like little lady. No, she's very insulted. Throws the drink in Quark's face and she storms out.

Robbie, were you shocked when this happened? Because I was. I was like, you just threw that drink on Armin? I was really shocked. Thank you for that, Gary. It's very sweet. You know when people have a jump scare and hormone? movies. I jump scared when the liquid hit you. I'm like, because of the make of you.

Then I would recommend to you that you don't watch a lot of our episodes because everything is always thrown at me one way or not. Do you get stuff? Do you get drinks thrown in your face a lot? I don't, I don't remember any, but there probably are. But everybody grabs me by the lapels, you know. Yes. You get manhandled. I get it. I get manhandle. No respect. No respect. Sorry, it hurts me because I know who you are. So I, you know, I thank you. Before you have to remember, I was 25 years younger then, so it's okay, it's all right. Okay, okay. Well, Quark does say that he's still charging her for that Trixie and Bobbages, which I love.

But I love it how calm Quark is, though. He's like, I'm still charging her for that drink. He doesn't, he doesn't, he doesn't get offended. He just says, yeah, he's perfectly delivered. Perfectly comedically delivered. I'm already aware of how badly I'm going to be manhandled for the rest of the show, so I take it in stride. Okay, exactly.

Okay, so we're at the prom. now we've got nog and jake they're sitting up on that special spot that they love in the corner of the balcony i love that spot i don't know who invented it if it was david livingston i think that's the first time i remember seeing it but it's a great it's just so good for their character it's great location to shoot yeah so they're bored jake wants to play baseball in the holodeck nogg does not he thinks baseball is a boring game were you upset by that robbie when he said i'm not as much a baseball guy When we were on Voyager, I was a huge baseball guy. You were only baseball at that point.

I was only baseball. I've transitioned to my college football obsession now. Baseball, yeah, it's a nice pastime. I thought it was a surprising statement from Michael Pillar, who was a huge baseball fan. For him to have a character say, I'm not crazy. It's slow and boring. To me, that was an inside joke.

It was like, oh, that's just Michael, you know, That's what everybody says to Michael. That's what he hears from people all the time. Right. So this was a dig sort of from the writers at Michael. Or I'm sure Michael had to read the script and approve it because he was the showrunner. God knows what Ira had to say in order to keep that line in. Right.

Exactly. So they're sitting there discussing what boring things they can do, arguing about baseball. And then Odo appears. Tells them they can't sit like that, orders them to stand up. And as soon as they're standing. he says thank you he leaves and they sit right back down they sit right back down yes yeah yeah rebellious children you know you got to be you got to pay attention to uncle odo if uncle odo tells you to get up just just respect the man please yeah they sit back down and then nogg spies he sees varus for the

first time and is his breath is taken away he thinks he's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen runs off to meter and jake stands up and sort of follows he's not quite as as as enthusiastic or taken but but yeah gnaug is kind of hairy kimmish in a way very hairy chemist and kind of garrot wongish in a way back in the day exactly exactly okay we go back to the old man's chamber down on the planet sarah's chamber he wakes up sarah by the way is an interesting name it is for me who's a shakespearean scholar yeah because sarah is a title of address that's diminutive You call someone, sir, and that's respectful.

But if you call someone, sirrah, it's less than respectable. It's just saying, hey, guy, Joe, whatever. Wow. It doesn't, it doesn't have any, it doesn't have anything to do with respect. Is it condescending or is it more casual? It is condescending. It's condescending. Oh, my goodness.

Whereas he is the, he is the esteemed guy. He's on top of the totem pole here. But in the Shakespearean world, Surrah is a. CAD almost. Or Sira, actually. Sira, excuse me. Cira. Where goest thou, Sira?

It's, to me, it's... Where are you going, buddy? Hey, buddy. Yeah, yeah. Hey, Mac. Hey, bud. Yeah, what are you going? Okay.

Thank you for that. Well, this scene, so he wakes up, wants to know what time it is. He got two hours till sunset, till nightfall. And he goes, oh, good. He meets Bashir. Thinks that he's the prophet, thinks that he's the one that the prophet sent. But then when he holds his hand, he realizes, no, you're not the right guy. And he says, what about your companion?

Where's your companion? And Bashir calls O'Brien over. And Sarah holds O'Brien's hand. And he goes, yes, you're the one. Prophets did not fail me. And he says, okay, you can both leave. And so it's very confusing. He's like, he's found some important guy the prophets talked about.

But then he's like, okay, you can go. Yeah. By the way, this is a oneer, this scene. There are no cuts in this entire scene. Mm-hmm. Very cinematic, more movie. style and TV style. Very David Livingston. Very David Livingston. It's not a complicated shot. It's just a simple kind of tableau of the bed. People coming and going. But it's a, it is a rare oneer.

Right. A very bold thing to do as a TV director myself, when you do a oneer, you take away the ability for the producers or studio or anyone to choose performances. Yeah. They're stuck with this one long shot. They can pick which take they like. but they can't edit in any way. Correct. So it's a very bold move for David Livingston to do a wonder. You can get in trouble for that. When he held Bashir's hand and then he held O'Brien's hand.

Online, it says that he was checking their paw. And I thought if you check a paw, you got grab that ear. Yeah. So did it look like he was trying to grab O'Brien's ear a little bit like his face? Or did it always be the hand? I thought it was just the hand. Just the hand. So maybe you can check paw that way too.

So, okay. All right. Well, we go outside in the village square and Farron asks how Sarah is and Bashir says he's succumbing to old age, that there's nothing Bashir can do. He's going to die in natural death. But he's, he's an old man and he's going to depart soon. Yeah. Farron is terrified. Without Surah, the Dalrock, this terrible creature that lives out in the woods is going to destroy the entire village. So Farron, is terrified. But Farron does say that this doll rock thing comes every year, once a year at the end of harvest, it appears. For five consecutive nights. For five consecutive nights. So this is a once a year thing, but it's a big deal. For five nights, they've got to defend themselves against the doll.

We go back to the station in a corridor. Nog and Jake are approaching Ferris's door, and they're arguing over who's going to ring the doorbell. I love that they literally start like, it's like three. These are fighting each other. You're afraid. No, I'm not. You are. No, you're afraid.

Oh, my gosh, guys. Yes. But Varus opens the door. And she's like, what are you guys doing? And Nog is completely tongue-tied. He cannot put two words together. He says, my name is Jog. I mean, Jake.

Jake, no. And then Jake, who's fine. He's calm. He says, he's Nog. I'm Jake. And they walk into the room. They just walk right past her, which I thought was kind of bold. Did you find fault with that scene?

Like, who walks right into somebody's quarters without being invited teenagers? And not only that, did you see where Jake put his feet, puts his feet up on the table? I go, whoa, whoa, whoa, who does that? But she seems to be okay with it. Like, she doesn't say anything. She's supposed to be a kid like them. They're all kids, relax, not uptight, like the grown-up. Varus has to be, and we see this in the episode,

like Varus is trying to put on this adult strength and be like her father, but she really is more comfortable around the kids. And that's what I felt like that scene, why it was staged that way, you know, that she's okay with it. She's actually more comfortable in a weird way with kids. Okay, that makes sense.

Okay, so you drop all the niceties and the formalities, you know, that adults have, yeah. Yeah, they act like kids. They put their feet up. They don't ask permission. I'll buy that. And what kid throws a drink in an adult's face? That's what I'm asking.

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Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Taxes and fees extra. See MintMobile for details. But they come in, they offer Jake offers to give her a tour to maybe look at the wormhole. There's this cling on freighter, is going to go to the gamma quadrant. She agrees, and Nog, Nog is like, ecstatic about this. Aaron's very funny in this scene, this whole episode, actually. Yeah, he is.

He really is. Okay. By the way, I want to say, I love in this episode that there's two equally entertaining stories. There's an A story and a B story. They kind of have themes that echo, but they're both entertaining stories. I don't even say B story. I say A and A minus. I mean, they're very.

I mean, they balance. Or two A stories. Yeah, or two A storylines, right? Yeah, they're both great stories. Okay. But we go back to the village. The old man, Sarah, is helped up onto this big rock outcropping by the village square. Bashir's telling him, you know, you should go back to bed in your condition, but he ignores Bashir.

And suddenly this wind appears when he's up on this big rock stage almost. It's like a promontory. Yeah, it's like the Lion King. It enters this. He's in the lion. This is outcropping of rock like the Lion King, yes. It is absolutely the Lion King. He goes up there.

This wind comes. O'Brien's checking the tricorder. He's like, I don't know. What is this? He can't seem to get any readings. But this huge cloud appears above them. That's the doll rock. Sirah starts to speak.

He calls for the village to be strong. Defeat the doll rock. The doll rock gets closer. This energy. burst, hits the village, and Surrah collapses at the end of this scene. Yeah. He collapses, falls down, appears to be dead. And the break, the act break goes out on O'Brien going, oh, bloody hell.

It's very funny. But before he collapses, doesn't the, you know, he leads, he tells the story, he leads the villagers sending their energy and you see that little energy beginning. to repel Dalrock. You see that for a second, but then he falls. Isn't there a beginning of the light particles? These light particles are going back towards the doll rock. Basically, the energy from the village and the energy from the doll rock is sort of competing,

but the doll rock seems to be winning. Especially when the guy falls. Yeah, it falls down. Oh, bloody hell. Anyway, we come back from our little break and Bashir's trying to help, but Sarah wants his successor, his, that the, Prophets had sent him. That's O'Brien. O'Brien says, I'm not your guy. Like, no thank you, but Sara asks him just to come, say what he, say what I say, basically. So he starts, O'Brien starts

repeating these words that Seraa gives him. Surrah starts whispering the word. And he says, say it louder. Say it louder so they can hear. Yeah. Yes. But it does inspire the village to kind of send this energy particles back to the doll rock. It sends the doll rock away, you know. Rock is defeated. Oh, Brian, telling the story. It's so funny, like, when I saw the promo or, like, the little capture, you know, on Paramount Plus where I watch it, I thought this was going to be, oh, this is, this is Kohlmeini's Irish heritage.

He's going to be a great storyteller. And no, he's a horrible storyteller. He's awkward and doesn't really want to do it. I have a quote from the repelling of the Dalrock scenes here in the village. So here it is. On the filming of the scenes where the villagers face the Dalrock, David Livingston commented, we had 30 extras, wind and lightning.

They were really difficult working conditions. I had to use a bullhorn in order to communicate since I had lost my voice. It's physically very demanding on everybody to work on stage 18. The actors had to have big wind machines blowing in their faces, and it was very debilitating. But we got through it. It was fun.

Screaming through a bullhorn is a real power trip. is the end of Livingston's quote. David. It's funny. God knows how many takes. Oh, I know. That's the thing. Part of the reason why he lost his voice is because he does too many takes.

And he's screaming over the wind machine. So there you go. All right. To finish this scene, so O'Brien does repeat the words. They send the doll rock away. But Sirak collapses again. This time, he's dead. He's done.

Farron tells the village that they have a new, who will lead them and keep them safe. And that is O'Brien. O'Brien. Yeah, there's his calling. The man who would be king. Yes. Oh, my gosh.

How does Bashir even, did he even, he didn't have a tricorder? He didn't even, I mean, within seconds he knew he was dead. I was like, oh, I guess he's really good at that, you know. It didn't even look like he was touching his pulse. He felt his paw, his paw. He felt the paw. The paw was gone. Okay.

O'Brien's the new hero. We go to Quarks now. Quark is finishing a story to mourn. He sold them a whole herd of Klingon Targs is the end of the story. I want to hear the beginning of the story, though. I want to know how that happened. So do I. Did they write, they must have written these lines.

I mean, this isn't something you could improv or play with, right? Nothing was improv ever. Yeah, okay. So this was written for you. Yeah, the whole herd of Klingon Targs is the end of the story. story. And then Kira enters. And this is not a common thing. Kira coming to Kork's bar. She asked for a drink. Quark asks her how negotiations are going. And Kira says, you know what, you better make it a double. Clearly, negotiations are not good. And so Kira's in corks and

drinking, which I've never seen either of those things happen. And you won't see very much. Well, look at Kork's line. Major, what a pleasant surprise. I always look forward to one of your infrequent visits. It's well written right there. We know what's going on. And Armand, good job on pouring only just enough for a single because that vial looked a little bit, that carafe looked quite heavy, to be honest. It wasn't balanced very well, I don't think. One of the great traumas of my life when I was shooting the series

was pouring drinks. Pooring drinks was a trauma. It's dramatic. I can't tell you how many takes where I missed the liquid, missed a glass all together. Oh, just to see it. Yeah, because I'm looking at the actor and I'm dealing with the bottle and sometimes the pourers

weren't accurate. So, yes, I'm very happy that I got it right. Yes, he did. But God knows how many takes it took to get it, right? Right. Okay. I like that she ordered a star drifter, too. Yeah. Which I just happen to have in my hand. In your hand, yeah. Yes. Yes. We go to the commander's office. Varus comes into Cisco's office. I guess he's asked to see her. And she's pretty combative right off the beginning. And he asks if she really wants to negotiate at all or if she just wants to start a war and she says that she is ready to die for this principle for her people and Cisco says are your people ready to die and she decides to leave tells him she'll see him at the negotiation table so looks like she's digging in hard is this young varus girl that's one of my

favorite moments in this episode actually because she is a young person a little lady the young don't always do what they're told. That's a joke for anyone who's listening. The young are often ready to go head over heels into battle with anyone, actually. And here is the older, not necessarily wiser, but the older person in the room, Cisco, offering a bit of maturity. And I rather like that. And the actress took that in and went, oh, that's a good point.

So there's a sense of her maturing at that moment from listening. to what the older wiser Cisco is telling. I rather like that moment a great deal. I agree with you. You saw it. It's not enough yet for her to change kind of her position.

But Cisco is making some headway with her. You can see it. You see, yeah, it's a great scene, really does seem. We go to the Promenade next. I think Nog and Jake are looking around for Varus. Nag reminds Jake that she's mine. I saw her first. And Jake says, you know what, you're so nervous.

You can't even put two words together to talk to her. It's very funny, the boys being boys. They stumble into her as they go upstairs. She's sitting in their favorite balcony spot. Yeah. They're still in a mid-conversation. Like, Nog almost ruins it at this point. Yes.

Yeah, because Jake says, you must really like her. And Nog says, I never said that. All I said, but, oh, hey, Varis. How are you? They sit down with her. She's in the middle, though. I love that little tabelow, the three of them up there. Yep.

And she asked the boys for advice. And Jake says, well, I always talk to my dad. Nog says, my dad's pretty smart too, sort of. She asked them like, okay, so does it help? Because both of them talk to their dad. And then Jake says, yes. And Nog says, no, it doesn't help talking to Rom. Yeah, they have very different perspectives on fatherly advice.

They have different fathers. Yes. And that will change. Okay. Yes, I have no doubt. Veris does say, though, that her parents are dead. She reveals that to the boys here. And as Jake is starting to recommend talking to his dad again, Odo shows up.

And the three of them just run off. Yeah. Because the boys know what that means when Odo shows. Yeah. Nog does throw a little bit of a barb in there when he says, could we please talk about something besides your father? He's really upset. He's not upset.

He's jealous. That's what it is. He's very jealous right at this point. Well, he can't speak as well about Rom at this point as Jake can say about Cisco. And again, I remind everyone, again, the element of family is injected into deep space nine. Yeah. And different kinds of family, different kinds of relationships. Yeah.

We go back down to the planet, back to our other A story in Suras Chamber. Bashir is, no, this is the scene I want to talk about. Bashir's eating an apple. And O'Brien is pacing And he paces in and out of the frame And we don't see O'Brien for a lot of his dialogue Again, a bold shot from David Livingston But it's perfect for the comedy

Because Bashir's eating this apple And enjoying O'Brien's panic About being this new The new Sarah. Great shot with O'Brien pacing in and out. Perhaps we should have seen him just dealing with the fact that he's way, he's in over his hand, that he doesn't know what to do. I actually would have liked to have seen his distress at being in this situation.

I would say, Armin, I think this is a great example. Your thoughts and my thoughts about watching, it's a great example of how directors do have an impact on storytelling. That directors and the choices as they make can have a huge impact because here, and I always talk to directors about when they're coming up with their plan, have a point of view. You need your director's point of view and you also need to know which

character's point of view the scene is is about. And what David Livingston chose was Bashir's point of view. And I think what you're saying is I want to see O'Brien's point of view. Yeah, and he didn't shoot that. If it's the man who will become king then we need to see him

dealing with that. Yeah. Yeah. And you didn't. What you saw was a comic Bashir experience of O'Brien's panic. But I did laugh, whether it was right or wrong, I did laugh at the choice that Livingston made. Villagers start to arrive with gifts. It seems that there are three women that seem to be part of this offering. Yes, they're a different type of gift. There's food. There's also, you know, some like jewels maybe and also females are offered. Yes. Three women seem to be part of that. O'Brien says, no, no, I've got a wife and child back on the ship, and Farron sends them off. Farron's like, oh, then you've got to bring him here.

They're going to live here with you. Yes, bring your wife and child here that they can live here with you because you're going to stay and protect us now. And you've got to stay and tell the story. And then Farron leaves. And O'Brien basically says at the end, you know, we've got to find out what this doll rock really is and we've got to destroy it. Like, I can't, I can't. yeah i can't stay here yeah i like in the scene bashear at one point he goes you know for all we know maybe you were really sent by the prophets and o'brien goes i was sent by commander scisco

which ironically this is giving away to i know where you're going the writers didn't know that but it's it's ironic it's ironic it's true both ways is what it's right that's right so we will learn that later in when we watch further yes yeah yeah so we go to a station log supplemental here. We have completed the second day of talks between the Paku and the Navat. Cisco says so far we are no closer to finding a solution than we were when the negotiations began. So the young Varus is sticking to her gun. She is not going to give up this land. We go to Veris's quarters. Jake and Nag go to visit her and they invite her to do something, but she says, no, not right now. And then she asked Nag about opportunity, what he said about opportunity. How can you be sure that there's

it's worth the risk. And here, Nog really rises to the occasion and talks about the rules of acquisition. And he says, this is the first time we hear the ninth rule of acquisition, I might add. Okay. He talks about instinct. Yeah. And opportunity. Instinct plus opportunity equals profit.

And she admits that really helps. Like, it makes sense to her with what she's trying to struggle with here. Yeah. And Nog is so happy that he helps. He wants to celebrate. And he says, let's go steal Odo's bucket for fun. Which doesn't seem like, yeah, I don't know. That's not a celebration for me, but...

No, but to them it is, because they're teenagers. This episode marks the very first appearance of Odo's Bucket. You don't see it before. It's mentioned, but you don't see it until now. So they go down. Nog has this security rod that he got from his dad. Not from his dad. It's from his uncle.

It's from court. Oh, from his uncle, that's right, from court. It's, again, the security liquid. Yeah. Yes. But they wait. Veris is like still confused what's funny about a bucket. She doesn't get it.

Jake explains that Odo turns to goo and he sleeps inside of it. And that's when Nog opens the door and waves them inside Odo's office. Yeah. And it seemed pretty quiet there in the promenade. It seems like, you know, it was a little late. They were safe. Yeah. I got the sense it was late at night.

though day and night must be, you know, problematic when you're in outer space. Yeah. There's nothing to tell you day, you know, what's day and what's night. I love how he, when he comes back in, because he leaves both Veris and Jake standing at the beginning of the office. And, and they're, you know, Varys is a little nervous. Veris is like, I don't know if this is okay. I mean, is this bad?

And he's like, no, we're not really stealing anything. But when Nog comes out and says, found it, he trips. And it just reminds me of every time Aaron would do fake trips during the. the Vegas convention at my table. Like, he would trip at my table and fall into my table, knock up, my photos would be knocked onto the floor. He would fall into my home and booed and everything. He did a, he always did that as a joke to me and Megan, right?

So he would, and here he's doing the fake trip falling forward and all the, the liquid of what is supposedly, supposedly, Odo gets spilled on to. Yeah, Jake is terrified at first. He's like, oh, my, he's like, oh, my God, oh, no. Horrified for a moment that it's Odo. And Nog starts laughing hysterically. I love Aaron's laugh in this whole scene. But that laugh is very Aaron Eisenberg.

You know what I'm saying? He does that all the time. He did that all the time. And he brought that into the character, which I love. Yeah, it was great. They're laughing hysterically. Nog does reveal that it's just oatmeal from the replicator. And that's what he throws it at him.

Yeah, they all start laughing and food fighting. And that's when Odo walks in. And Nog panics. He runs for it out in the hallway. Cisco grabs him and says, hey, what's the rush? So these kids are in trouble. So these kids are in trouble. They've just invaded the security officer's office.

Yes. They've messed around with the private property of the security officer. Very important private property, too. And there's nothing, these kids are in trouble. Got it. But shouldn't there have been? more? Yeah.

Shouldn't there, shouldn't somebody have gotten a lecture? Oh, certainly not should have gotten a lecture, but I think also Jake should have gotten a lecture. And what is the head lady in the negotiation doing? Playing around with the kids, breaking and entering, stealing buckets. All we get is, you know, we'll talk about this. And, and I go, this should be something more. This should be something more.

Does Odo smile during this scene? Does he have a bit of a smile? No, he smiles in another scene. Another scene, okay. Which the most phony thing I've ever seen Renee do on. Well, the note. That smile was beyond wrong. The note on memory alpha is that this is the second episode in which we see Odo smile.

The first was two episodes prior in Vortex. And in both cases, Odo smiles as a result of interacting with children. So that's. Oh, interesting. So the smile you saw was the fakes smile you've ever seen. I've, the fakes I've ever seen. It's the, it's the phoniest thing I've ever seen. That Renee has ever done, right?

Okay. Okay, good. Now we know. All right. We go back to the village, O'Brien and Bashir, scanning rocks around the village that exploded. Yeah. They find some residual neutrino levels.

And so they think maybe there is some kind of mechanism behind all of this, but they're not sure. They can't figure it out. It's confusing. Yeah. A villager. where the baby comes up, wants a blessing from O'Brien here?

You imagine auditioning for that part? I looked at that and went, how do you audition for that? I know. But he does. He touches the baby's head, right? Touches the baby. Yeah, he kind of says,

what does he say? I'm sure she'll make you very proud. That was his blessing. Yes. Yes. I'm sure she'll make you very proud. It's kind of pathetic. This crowd arrives and they all want blessings

and O'Brien runs for it. He's going to go search Sirrah's room and Beshear stays back to hold the crowd back. Hold the crowd back. And continue searching around the rocks. But we do see at the end of the scene, creepy Hoveath. I didn't trust Hoveath the first time I saw him.

That creepy shot, I definitely don't trust him. We find out that Hovath is his apprentice in this scene. We thought maybe he was a caretaker, sort of maybe a nurse or something in the beginning. Well, perhaps a son, a son maybe. relative, whatever, but now we know this is the apprentice. Well, we learn this in the room. O'Brien's searching around the room.

Hovath creeps in. Creepy, creepy, Hobart. O'Brien asked what he did. Hoveth says he was the apprentice. And O'Brien says that, you know, he wants to know some of the secrets. But Hobath is like, well, if you're the Sarai, you shouldn't know all the secrets. So we see a little bit of a conflict between these two. And then O'Brien turns his back towards a mirror.

luckily there was a mirror because he could see Hoveath with a knife coming to stab him and he turns around there's a bit of a struggle Bashir runs in sees through the window what's going on runs in and they struggle with this knife but they disarm him

and he reveals that he is the true Surah. Right. Basically he claims that he is the true sir. I wonder if that's a typical bojuran dagger. Is that how they all look because it was very different looking from everything I've seen. It was probably a rubber prop just for safety.

It was a rubber prop. Yeah, you're right. I did read that. They would have a rubber prop there. So that might have been what made it look different. Yeah. But that's the act out when he claims to be the true surah. We come back and Hobath explains he studied for nine years.

He was supposed to take over. But when he was given a chance to tell the story, he failed. Yeah, this was three nights ago, right? Yeah, he got nervous. Yeah, he got nervous. he couldn't control the bracelet right which what does it have a little piece of the orb a fragment of the orb a fragment of the tear of the prophet here are the prophets yes yes and he does tell this is where he tells them garret that long ago this village was divided by hate and distrust and the first sarah used this orb fragment to bring their collective fears to life and then he had them focus their collective energy to work together and defeat their fears. Yes.

Yeah. And defeat the hate. Defeat the hate. And defeat the hate. Yes. But none of the villagers know this secret. They have no clue that the Dalrock is really their own anger towards each other in that civil unrest that they had many, many, many years ago.

Yeah. And if I may put a fine point to it, I think that is the crown jewel of this episode. Is that little speech about focusing a community's energies to dissolve hate. I think, wow. that's what I watch Star Trek for. Oh, totally. Totally. Yes, I agree. This is this story concept

is the theme, is the big ideas, and it's well articulated, well, written. But O'Brien tells Surrah, well, you're going to have another chance tonight. Ferran arrives, and O'Brien tells him this, that

he wants Hobath to tell the story, and Farron's like, no way. We can't let him tell the story again. he failed. O'Brien's got to be the one to do it. So O'Brien's not happy about that. No. Well, would you want to wear those clothes? I wouldn't want to put that robe on either.

By the way, did you notice? Very tacky. Have you noticed the color schemes that both Robbie and I chose are very similar to the Saraz robes, the pejoran colors? Did you notice that, Robbie? Don't you do that on purpose? I did not. You did it arbitrarily.

Look at that. Arbitrarily. I kind of felt, hey, I want to get in that kind of color scheme and look at that. This is the Saraz clothing, basically. Okay, so next we go to the commander's office, Varis is there with Cisco. She says that she knows the boys were just

trying to impress her. Didn't you ever try to impress a girl before? But she does admit in the scene that she misses her parents and she shares how strong her dad was and she wants to be strong like he was. And Cisco asks her if her answer is still no and she

pauses at that moment. And she says you know what i have an idea for an opportunity that would allow both sides to say yes so whatever nogg said to her has turned some gears and and and and cisco's advice all those things together she's come up with a way that that maybe they can she can save face for her people and be strong like her dad but solve this problem right i like i'm with you too arman i like the scenes with veris and Cisco they were great scenes both of them in there yeah

we go to the square this is O'Brien's turn the scene is hilarious yeah he he tells O'Veth that he really should be the sirrah but

but O'Brien begins to tell the story of the doll rock and it's just super awkward he's just not very inspiring I just wanted it to be more awkward I want it to be more awkward, genuinely awkward, not actory awkward.

Yeah, I hear you. It was comedic awkward to me. And I just, I'm always a fan of comedy in Star Trek whenever there can be funny stuff. As a comic actor on Star Trek, the trick to being successfully comic on Star Trek is to be utterly real. Yeah. Yes, that's true. Yeah. That's true.

And this was a little bit fronting the, yeah, it was kind of presenting. the comedy rather than actually experiencing the awkwardness of it. It was still funny and awkward, but it could have been even more. It could be even more. Oh, yes. More real. Yes, yes. But Hovath, in this awkward storytelling,

Hobath says, no, something's wrong here. Bashir tells Hovath that maybe this was Surah's plan to pick O'Brien, knowing that O'Brien would fail and that Hobath would have to save him. Right. And this makes sense to Hovath. I love this little turn in the story. O'Brien falls down from this doll rock energy blast. It's not worth.

His storytelling is not working. And Hovath comes up and takes over, but he's very confident this time because Bashir's logic makes sense to him. He also grabs the little fragment of the orb from O'Brien and puts it on his palm, basically. And he does a great job, turns the doll rock around. Everybody's safe. And now the villagers are celebrating Hovath, the true sirrah. And O'Brien says, let's get out of here while we can.

They take off. I almost wanted to hear that cartoon sounding of the feet. Like walk running off of them. Let's get out of here. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I felt like Armine a bit like in these two A stories that the Vera story about her father and her parents and being the orphan, that was the one that had kind of. the heart like the you know to me that was the one where i had tears you know i felt her her sadness and that that orphan experience whereas yeah i i think when when our writers wrote about family they they knew what they were talking about it just had more umph to it as you say yeah yeah i agree go to the promenade veris asked cisco if he thinks the nevot will accept her plan and her plan is free trade like let's start trading and we'll give you back the land if we can just start collaborating basically she's kind of offering like if you really commit to collaborating with us

we'll give you your your land back yeah and cisco thinks that's reasonable jake and nog wait by the door of this negotiating room to wish her luck and she thanks both of them for everything and then she kisses nog on the cheek which is super sweet does he have frequent goals that they put on him? Yes, yes, he has. That was something I never knew, and I'm looking up close at his face going, wait a minute, Nog has freckles. Wow.

Okay. Adorable. He will never lose those freckles. Got it. He doesn't? Never lose the preckles. That's great. Well, Cisco and Vars go into the negotiation, and Odo shows up and grabs the boys.

Their punishment is to clean the security office until it shines. And that's it, Armin. They don't get the brig. They don't get chewed out. They just got to go, they have to go clean up the food fight. Yeah. As we saw in the previous scene, it's just really one or two or three panels at the most. Yeah.

Yes, exactly. Yeah. It's not a lot in there. And then we see Bashir and O'Brien returning. And Bashir thinks this trip is going to make a great story for everybody. O'Brien says he doesn't want to tell any more stories. Was this a oneer, Robbie? Was this a oneer right here?

Yeah, kind of. I think there was a little coverage with the Varys. moment. Okay. But once Odo came up, yeah, it kind of turned into a handoff from the kit. Well, from the kiss, didn't it go right over to Odo and Bashir at that point? Yes. Okay. Yeah, went over to, sorry, it went over the kiss and then O'Do appears. O'Do takes the boys into his room and then O'Brien are coming out of the other. Correct. It hands it off, doesn't it? Yeah, it was very elegant, very elegant. It was David Livingston all over again. There you go, David. I always felt like David Livingston to me reminds me of one of my favorite

directors, Vincent Minelli, an old golden age of Hollywood director. I was a big fan. Liza Minnelly's dad. Liza Minnelly, if you look at his work, beautifully staged oners, the way the actors moved and the camera move without cuts. I always thought of that when David Livingston would design these kind of moments that reminded. Did Manelli direct film or television? The direct movies. movies, yeah. Is there one that stands out? A star is born is, I think, his greatest. The resistance, okay.

Yes, okay. Yes, the original star is born. All right. Bashir does tell O'Brien, by the way, you don't have to call me, Julian. John thought was very funny. And O'Brien's response is, right you are, sir. And he's back to that. We've come full circle.

Oh, my goodness. There you go. There's the episode. Yeah. My lesson is kind of like what you mentioned, Armin, about that scene where the description of why this doll rock appears, are group fears, groups working together. My theme is that groups of people need to see their common interests truly connect them.

That every group, you know, you can look at politics, you can look at whatever. we all have common interests as human beings, fundamental common interests that connect us more than divide us. So that was to me the theme, just like with the VAR's story or the storyteller story, they both kind of echoed each other to me. I would actually reiterate everything you just said. I think it's about gathering communities together and working on a problem. Although Cisco doesn't gather the community together per se, it is a good.

community that he is a part of, including Jake and Nog. And together, the community on Deep Space Nine help solve this problem for Varus, as it does in the other story that the community gets together. I also think, what is it, something plus opportunity equals. Oh, yes. Instinct plus opportunity equals profit. I think that that runs through this episode as well. Instinct, yes. What about you, Garrett? I think my lesson is more with Veris and just. just knowing that sometimes, you know, you've got to, you can dig in your heels all you want, but really sometimes you've got to compromise. Sometimes you have to really come to the, you've got to give a little to get something.

I feel like a lot of people are like, very farangy-like. Yes, yes. So that's more my theme. But I also wanted to read, Michael Pillar commented, one of the really big problems with the script, which is why it didn't appeal to anybody, is because it was not about any of our characters. We were just watching the events occur by putting O'Brien in the middle, saying you have to solve it. What really appealed to me was the great theme that sometimes we create our own monsters so that we can defeat them and feel secure in our power.

I was always in love with that theme. And finally, we made it work. So that was wonderful. Excuse me. The reason, forgive me, is that, again, I love Cullum. He just didn't step up to the plate for this. It was about one of our characters. It's just that Collin didn't realize it.

Yeah. Yes, I agree with you, Armand. I actually do. And I both enjoyed the episode and the comedic kind of the light touch of it. But it is a missed opportunity in terms of the kind of the depth of that story, really having an impact in landing because of the choices Column made to keep it light and to stay sort of detached and outside of it. And if he had done that, think of the reverberations in Washeer, watching this. guy that he's known to be so confident and and and capable all of a sudden being underwater and watching him you know fail yeah and feeling for him right my god there was a great panoply of things

that could have been done between them although this is the beginning of their incredibly good relationship yeah yeah yeah okay great well there you go there is our episode thank you all for joining us and listening to this episode storyteller. And next time we will be reviewing and discussing the episode, progress. Progress is next time. For all our Patreon patrons, stick around for that awesome, amazing, incredible, and deep bonus material. So, you know, B.

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