The Delta Flyers - The Swarm

Episode Date: March 15, 2021

The Delta Flyers is a weekly Star Trek: Voyager rewatch and recap podcast hosted by Garrett Wang and Robert Duncan McNeill. Each week Garrett and Robert will rewatch an episode of Voyager starting at the very beginning. This week’s episode is The Swarm. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.The Swarm:The Doctor suffers from a computer malfunction; Voyager is attacked by a swarm of alien warships.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise and Rebecca McNeill, and our Post Producer Jessey Miller.Additionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co- Executive Producers: Stephanie Baker, Philipp Havrilla, Kelton Rochelle, Liz Scott, Sarah A Gubbins, Ann Marie Segal, Jason M Okun, Marie Burgoyne, Chris Knapp, Michelle Zamanian, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Matthew Gravens, Brian Barrow, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, James Zugg, Mike Gu, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Vikki Williams, William McEvoy, Holly Smith, Jesse Noriega, Dominic Burgess, Amber Eason, Lucas Shuck, PJ Tomas, and Nicholaus RussellAnd our Producers:Chris Tribuzio, Jim Guckin, Steph Dawe Holland, James Amey, Katherine Hedrick, Eleanor Lamb, Richard Banaski, Eve England, Ann Harding, Laura Swanson, Luz R, Josh Johnson, Chloe E, Kathleen Baxter, Craig Sweaton, Nathanial Moon, Warren Stine, York Lee, Mike Schaible, Kelley Smelser, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Matthew Cutler, Joshua L Phillips, Barbara Beck, Elaine Ferguson, Mary O'Neal, Aithne Loeblich, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Heidi Mclellan, Megan Hurwitt, Dat Cao, Cody Crockett, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Robert Hess, Cindy Ring, Andrei Dunca, Daniel Owen, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, Ming Xie, Mark G Hamilton, Heather Chappelle, Kevin Selman, Heather Choe, Kelly Havlik, Richard Sandnesaunet, Justin Weir, Joseph Michael Kuhlmann, and Kevin Hooker Thank you for your support!Our Sponsors:* Check out Mint Mobile: https://mintmobile.com/TDFSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hey everyone, welcome to the Delta Flyers of Tom and Harry as we journey through episodes of Star Trek Voyager. Your two hosts along this journey are myself, Gerard Wong and my co-host, Mr. Robert Duncan McNeil. 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. Hey, Robbie. Hey, buddy. Hi. So how are you? You're okay?

I'm good. The big day is tomorrow. The wedding. Yes, it's a bit of an elopement COVID wedding. So yeah, getting married. Rebecca and I are getting married tomorrow. Yeah. It's exciting. And yeah. And your witness, you have the actress from Resident Alien. Yes, our good friend, Liz Bowen, Elizabeth Bowen, and her partner, Tim. Love her character, by the way.

love her character. Yeah, she's very, she's awesome. Yeah, they're going to be our two witnesses and our officiant from the province of British Columbia, ordained by the Canadian government. And we will be a married, married couple tomorrow night. So I'm very excited. Although not much is going to change. It's just kind of like we keep doing, we keep watching our TV shows and lounging on the couch. And that's what we do. Take the dog for a walk. it's all yeah but it's good it's very exciting i'm thrilled you know we're doing this wedding and because we're not doing a big wedding we're planning on doing one maybe in a year um like a commitment ceremony with all the trappings of a of a wedding when everybody can gather safely we're planning on doing

it but for now we're just doing this very tiny thing yeah so we're just going to probably have our wedding our tiny little elopement wedding and yeah we're gonna we're gonna drink some champagne Sounds good. We're going to come back and have a nice meal from our favorite steakhouse here in town. Sounds wonderful. Well, pre-congratulations to you. And for everyone who's listening, we're about a week ahead. So by the time you hear this or watch this, you can just say congratulations on social media to Robbie.

So this week's episode, it's The Swarm. Yes, it is. And I think we should go watch this episode. Let's go watch it. I'm excited. The swarm you just gave me. I was like, do I remember this episode? We'll see.

That's for the next part, okay? I know. Patreon patrons, stay tuned for your onus material. Hey guys, we're back from watching the swarm. Yes, it was a swarm. It was. It was so very swarmy. There wasn't as much swarm as there was dock.

this. There's a lot of doctor. A lot of doc. Like the swarm is probably a bad title for this because it should be the singing doctor. That should be the title of this episode. I'm having some water just so I can sing. Because I may break out into opera at any moment. I would like to offer you a haiku synopsis, Garrett. Here we go. For the swarm. Tom and Torres flirt The doctor is forgetting Reset EMH The swarm

Yeah, there you go Nice, okay, here we go, here's my Here's the limerick Straight from County Cork Straight from the files of Francoe Hay Are set painter How are you, Garrett? Okay, here we go.

Voyager encounters space controlled by the swarm. We must pass through without sounding the horn. We make a fast break. The doctor deteriorates. Inverse harmonics repel while the doctor returns to his norm. Wow, you got a lot of information in that little. I got a lot of info. Boy, you did.

Yeah, but it takes me forever to do this. And you know how difficult it is to do. I know. It's so damn tough. Limerick's are hard. We should have a Limerick workshop, a Star Trek. You know what we should do? Because we didn't really start doing haikus and limerick synopsies until well into our recap.

We sort of got inspired and started doing that. And we missed, I don't know how many episodes, a dozen, two dozen episodes. We should go back and just do a special episode of poetry, just haiku limerick poetry. The ones we missed? Yeah. Perfect. That's, that's, that's, as an episode. That'll be an episode.

Just a little deconstruction, poetry breakdown. Sounds good. We should do a rap battle episode. Yeah, we're just do a whole thing. We're going to freestyle? Oh my gosh. I'm so excited. We're going to freestyle this.

I love this. I stink at freestyle, by the way. You were pretty good that one time you freestyled. I didn't pretty much stink at it. No. But I'll do it. Yeah. We're going to do it, guys.

Okay. Directed by Alex Singer. written by Mike Sussman. I think this may be the first script that Mike Sussman wrote. It could be. I think it is. I,

because I noticed that and I was like, wait a minute, when did Mike Sussman start with us? It must have been season three because he was around. I think Mike was there till the very end.

He was there for years. But I like Mike a lot. I thought he was really good. Yeah. I feel like he was a student of Jerry Taylor. for some reason, or a protege of jerry's. And then I think about Lisa Clink being a protege of jerry's.

You know, Jerry really took a lot of these young writers under her wing and mentored them. Michael Pillar did the same thing. I know he had a whole scholarship fund at the University of North Carolina for aspiring television writers. So particularly Jerry Taylor and Michael Pillar were, these kind of mentor figures for so many writers. I don't know as much about Rick Berman. I'm trying to think.

I know I feel like Brandon Braga was a bit of a protege of Rick Berman's in a way. I think, I think so. So, yeah, I guess there is really a history of this kind of mentorship on Star Trek in a great way. Anyway, Mike Sussman. Well, in the credits, it shows that Michael Pillar is the creative consultant at this point. So I guess they were still kind of, you know, in contact with him at this point, even though his office is no longer on the Paramount lot. He's gone on to do his other stuff.

So or maybe that was just a credit in name only. I'm not sure. Yeah, I feel like Michael Pillar went off to do his own, pursue his own projects in season three. Yeah. I don't remember him being around that much. Yeah. And regarding the, regarding writer Mike Suss. I went to college with a Mike Sussman, so that always confused me.

It was sort of like, what? Okay, Mike Sussman from college wrote this episode. Okay. And what we do know is a definite first on this episode. This is the very first time that the episode begins with the Helmsman's log. Yes. Tom Paris. I know.

I know. I didn't remember that. And the very first moment that started, I was like, oh my God. I do, I remember seeing it in the script. I remember going to the ADR booth and, and recording this, this log. Yeah. And feeling really, I felt like that was a really cool thing. Like, yeah, to be able to do that.

Well, let me, let me just see a couple of fun facts. Here's a couple fun facts that Megan found. Number one, the official Star Trek Voyager magazine issue number 11, Robbie McNeil gave an interview about this particular episode. Really? So, yes. So even though. you don't remember anything about this before we watched it you definitely remembered a whole bunch

when you were interviewed for issue 11 of the official star trek voyage magazine fun fact number two that Megan found is that and that opening scene where Torres and Paris are in the shuttle you guys are flying towards what looks like the Orion constellation that can be seen from earth wow yeah we were really close we were so close to earth holy crap why didn't somebody tell Janeway we must have we could have just taken a right bear right and you'll be home in like half an hour okay I said it looks like the Orion constellation it wasn't really the Orion constellation

yeah good good one though good I like that yeah let's continue let's talk about this crazy flirtation going yeah so Torres and I are out there to investigate some sensor readings some weird sensor readings we've been out there for five hours together in the show yeah and she really wants to give up and Paris wants to keep looking and I like that he teases her about Ensign Bristow. Yeah.

She's like, Freddie Bristow has a crush on me. Fine. Freddie Bristow. Who's Freddie Bristow? Well, we do know he's attractive and he's tall and he's, you know, actually it sounds like Ayala, tall guy, good looking guy. It sounds like Ayala. But we never see Bristow or Bristro. Bristow or Bristro? I thought it was Bristow. Bristow. We never see this guy. No. Ever, right? But he's got a crush on Torres, and it makes Paris a little competitive there,

and he asks her to go sailing on Lake Como. Lake Como in Italy, right? Isn't Lake Como in Italy? It is. George Clooney lives there. Yeah, the undercurrent of this episode is Italian. Lake Como, a holiday program, singing Italian opera, the Italian Diva opera singer. I mean, there's a lot of Italy going on in this episode.

And Torres says no. She turns to Paris down. She sure does. She sure does. But you are a little bit jealous, I guess. Maybe feeling a little competitive in that moment. But definitely, I think, after watching this episode, I do remember this scene in this episode being the beginnings.

I think it's the first time where I think I said to the writers, hey, wait a minute. Is there going to be something going on with Paris and Boulana? And I do remember now that we watch this, the writer's kind of saying, yeah, we might, we might develop something, but it's going to be very slow. I remember that, I remember that they were like, you know, it's not going to be fat. Like nothing's happening right away and maybe there'll be a little something. We'll dance around this for a long, long time.

So this was the beginning of that, yeah. This is the beginning of Tom and Bolana. Yeah. Or the hybrid name, Tallana, or the other way, bomb. This is the beginning of bomb. Bomb. Okay, so we go to Sandrine's. Yeah.

And the doc is singing opera. And by the way, I felt like the doctor with the hairpiece or wig that he was wearing, Robert Picardo. I felt like it looks a lot like a YouTube star, Alfonso, that some of our fans may know. He looked a lot like Alfonso. So for those curious. Go check out YouTube's Alfonso, love advice from Alfonso. It looks a lot like the doctor singing opera. Well, I think the reason why he looks a lot like Alfonso is because, from what I understood,

that hair piece was not provided by the hair department. That hair piece was provided by Bob Picardo himself. Yes, it was. That is probably the exact same hair piece that Alfonso wears. I think it is. Because Bob had lost his hair very young in his 20s, he had for different movies and theater things, he had a collection of wigs or hairpieces and things in his house that he had kept every show that built one for him. He would buy it or keep it. So I remember once going

to Bob's house. And he was given a tour, you know, showing me his house. And he goes, oh, and here's my closet of wigs and hairpieces. And he opened up the closet door. And I feel like there must have been like 40 or 50, you know, wigs and hairpieces just sort of mounted. Like he had a very organized. It was like someone would go in, you know, to try on a suit or something. Oh, I'm going to go in my closet and get a suit. He would go in his closet and he had all of these different looks, which was amazing as an actor to have that as a way of transforming. Yeah, I think that was Bob's. That was Bob's hair piece. It reminds me of an episode of Schitt's Creek.

I don't know if you've seen that comedy, but Catherine O'Harris' character has all these wigs on the wall, basically in the room that they're staying in. So she has many, many, many hair pieces. Bob showed me a photo of himself from his Yale days back when he was in college, when he still had his hair. And my goodness, it is just this. Remember, this is in the 70s, right?

So it's this huge, like, like, Afro. Yes. It's like this Italian afro that he has going on. It's just hair on top of more hair. Yeah. Super curls and very lush. You know, it just looked like the Amazon jungle is what it looked like. Yeah. So, yes, very different look for Bob. But, you know, hair or not, Bob is, you know, Bob. I prefer him without the hair, to be honest. I'm not a big fan of hair. I know. I know. I'm not a big fan of hair. I know. No, it's just, it's, it's a strange look when you see him with the, the hair pieces of those full wigs. Well, anyway, he, he sings the opera, and it was a long operatic piece. It was, it was not a small little piece. No. I feel like I remember, um, I remember Bob, I feel like Bob is the one that had the idea for the doctor to sing opera. And I don't know if Bob had sung opera.

I think he'd done musicals a bit. He has a wonderful singing voice. think this idea of like the doctor being a fan of opera and wanting to his character to sing was bob's pitch i remember bob used to talk to the writers a lot about story ideas or you know things that maybe even even with uh zimmerman even with zimmerman like backstory of of zimmerman why he created the emh and all of that yeah i feel like in this episode also the term emh was was brand new I don't think we had used that term before. I think we had called him the emergency medical hologram.

I don't think anyone ever abbreviated it until this episode. I think this was the first time where we referred to him as the EMH. And regarding the inclusion of the doctor singing Italian opera, and this is something that I've been talking about at Star Trek Conventions forever. I talk about how Bob Picardo was very persistent in his request for his character to sing. opera. Yeah, that's what, yeah. He was calling the writers endlessly, and I always impersonate him and saying, hello, this is the doctor. I think the doctor should sing Italian opera. You know, this is Bob. I think that the doctor should sing Italian opera. And

the writer's like, no, Bob, we're not interested. Hello, it's Tuesday. I think the doctor should sing Italian opera. No, that's not the direction we want to go in, Bob. Oh, that's fine. Hello, it's Wednesday. I think the doctors. So I just, I just, I do. this as a bit, a shtick that I do on stage in talking about how persistence paid off. Oh, totally. In my case, everything I suggested got shot down and I did not call back a second or third. I had persistence with directing and it paid off. I kept going back.

That's a good lesson for all of us is that being persistent and don't give up. Yeah, I do remember that Bob was very much in communication with the writers about his character. I think Kate was with Janeway. I think she had a lot of conversations with them about the character. Yeah, I think Ethan Phillips had some, I think Ethan may have pitched a story. We'll find out later on down the road. Did you pitch anything? I never did. No, I wish I had. It really didn't occur to me as an option, but I know I know Bob did. I know Kate did. I know Ethan did. I know Roxanne did. I think she pitched some stories. And I think for you, Robbie, to be perfectly honest, you were too focused on directing.

You weren't really focused on molding your character one way or another. You were focused on I'm going to go and I'm going to hang out in the editing room. I'm going to sit in on the meetings because my ultimate goal is I'm going to direct an episode. And you were. You were the first one to direct Voyager. Coming up soon, by the way. Yeah. In our recap, it's coming up very soon.

I think in the next couple episodes. We leave the doctor. He's called into sick bay. And Balana seems fine. She's good to go, back to work. But Tom is near death over there. He's unconscious and they've got to do a procedure. And so one lesson.

And I feel like I remember this. Like there's Tom again, getting injured and suffering. And I feel like last week we had the shoot and Tom was suffering. And I feel like I remember this in season three, kind of saying to the writers, hey guys like is this going to be a pattern is tom going to keep getting beat up and and near death and i thought he was going to be an action hero and i do remember feeling at this point like uh yeah i don't want to lay in a in a you know uh sick bay bed i also also to that point so paris is almost dead and then a few scenes later. We'll get there in a few minutes, but I got to say, a few scenes later, he's sitting down

there at the con looking fabulous. Like nothing happened. And I was like, wait a minute, what the? Like, he was almost dead. Can he have a day off? Like, or shouldn't they, shouldn't they talk about it? Or no, he's just back at work. Like, it seems like an hour ago. You had one scene off is what you had because we're on the bridge and Janeway is talking to Helm. And it's a female voice. It's a disembodied voice that we hear and she's like okay helm we need to do this and you hear this female voice going eye captain this yeah so you're gone for that one scene once you come back yes i thought that that you and and um robert beltrone were going to have a uh um like a war particles moment yes in the briefing room is this the briefing room in the briefing room yeah we're trying

to figure out how to cross this border of these these crazy aliens you both are like smiling yeah i think we can do this. I think we can. Yeah. It was really, when I was watching that, I'm like, man, I'm extra smiley in this scene. You were. Yes. And this could this could have been really our off-camera life kind of creeping into our on-camera life in a way, you know, because Beltrane and I were always joking around off-camera and hanging out because, let's face it, Robbie, you were so busy. You didn't have time for me back then. I know. I know. Poor, poor guy. I know. But yes, I think that's what I thought, too, because you were both so smiley. I'm like, I think they were goofing around between takes and they were just like something else was going on because it's a little too smiley for what you're actually saying.

Right. I agree. I agree. So I caught that too. All right. So after the briefing room scene, we go back to the sick bay and we realize the doctor cannot remember how to perform the operation on Paris. And I was thinking, uh-oh, I mean, this could be a lobotomy for Tom Paris. He could end up be a vegetable.

You know, you could be, what were you saying? It was a vegetable and then a city name. So you could have been artichoke, Berlin, after that lobotomy. But thank God for, that Kess is there. Kess actually knows everything, literally. Kess is now so well. She's so, she has studied so much that she could, literally take over the doctor's job and that's what it was great it was very well directed i thought

by alex singer because the doctor started at the you know at the head of the bed and he couldn't remember the procedure and as he asked for help and sort of fumbled kess goes into action and steps away from the nurse's position to get some tools and then he the doctor sort of wanders over and you realize by the end of the scene that they've swapped places and that kess is now in the doctor position and he's in the nurse position I thought that was very well, a nice detail that Alex staged in the scene. Yeah, did you notice how, okay, so after the scene continues in Sick Bay, and now there's a conversation between Balana, Janeway, and Kess.

Yes. And Janeway's just like, okay, just reinitialize him, you know, forget about all of his memories. And Kess is the one that was like, way, way, way, way, way. But that whole scene, after watching that, I'm just watching Jennifer Lien going, my God, what a tour to force. could be the captain. I made the same note. I said she seems incredibly strong and mature. She had a maturity and a presence that I was like, God, Jennifer Loon was great in that scene. She killed it. She killed it. I mean, I was so impressed. And of course, you know, her lifespan is only, what, six years or something like that. Yeah. So she's already becoming a senior citizen.

Yes, she's kind of already in the old folks home at this point. So, um, Her dreams of being a captain will never be realized, unfortunately. But my goodness, Jennifer Lean really just, she knocked that out of the park. That scene. I was so impressed with her. My God. Back on the bridge. So Harry finds a way.

He finds a way that there's a, I'm going to, I'm just going to read what I say. This is going to be my techno babble for this episode. Okay. Their sensor net uses a series of interlaced tachion beams. If we adjust the shields to refract those beams around the ship, we can slip across without appearing to disrupt the net. Oh, nice. As smooth as your idea is, Tuvok is like, uh-uh, uh-uh. He's not pleased at all. Tuvok does not like it. He's like, this breaks Starfleet rules.

If they don't want us to enter their space, we should not do it. That's protocol. Yeah, because that's what he said in the earlier scene in the briefing room, right? He's the one that brings it up to Janeway. He's like, uh, the captain, do you think this is? And Janeway looks him like, no, we're so far away. I mean, she literally just says, forget to hell with Starfleet protocol. We don't care. Which is crazy because typically, Janeway is all about protocol. She is. In this episode, she just throws it all out the window. Which seems crazy. Because of the 15 months, right? Because the 15 extra months to get around this part of space to get away from these aliens, that's why she just throws Starfleet's a window. It is. Very, very risky.

And shocking. And shocking at the same time. And at the end of the scene, there's like this camera push in on Tuvok as he watches. Yeah. And, you know, Janeway's like, that's when Janeway, I think, says, Helm, take us to the border. Like, you know, let's go. Let's do this. And push in, Tuvok's like, he's not happy. What's the next scene that we have? Well, Torres is trying some things in Sick Bay at this point. With the dock.

Which I love the fact that they've got Torres and the dock together. I think they're a hilarious cup duo, and I wish we saw more of them together. That was a nice combo. And you're right, that it's a very rare combo as well. We don't see that pairing of series regulars. Yeah. So definitely good to see that. I thought it was great.

Roxanne, it makes Roxanne lighter and funnier, Torres, as a character, lighter and funnier, I think, to be in those scenes. Yeah. Yeah, so she's trying to run some diagnostics. Then she goes, wait a minute, we need a second opinion. And so you see her go down to the holodeck, and she opens up the Jupiter Station diagnostic program. and there we meet the holographic recreation of Louis Zimmerman. Now, Robbie, this is where I thought that, because earlier when we were talking about,

my God, who is the familiar holographic character that, you know, we were trying to figure this out, and you suggested Barclay. So I thought, oh, my God, this is where Barclay's going to pop in, actually. That was my first thought because you kind of put that in my head. But no, it's Louis Zimmerman, aka Robert Picardo once again.

Yep. with a whole new look. Now he's had the wig singing opera. He's had his normal look. Now he's got a different look. I have to say, first of all, I thought Alex Singer did a great job

staging these scenes with a split screen because you've got to have Bob Picardo playing both Zimmerman and the doctor. And that's not easy to do these kind of scenes and stage them in a way that feels organic and real because you have to film them separately. So Bob did a great job. acting with probably a stand-in or more an eye line for those split screens.

I thought it was really well done. So I think, you know, I'm sure Marvin Rush, our DP, had a lot to do with, you know, figuring out how to do this, Dan Curry, the whole visual effects department, figuring out the split screens and things like that. But I thought it was really well done. I also thought that Bob Picardo did a beautiful job of differentiating the doctor. I've heard him before say the doctor, because he's a computer. program doesn't fumble with you know ums and and doesn't fidget doesn't do things the doctor is a computer

program he's a robot in a sense he's precise his language is precise he doesn't stumble in his pattern of speech or um or hums or any of that stuff he doesn't itch himself you know nothing is accidental with the doctor and i saw his work bob's work as Zimmerman and it was very human i loved it I thought it was great because he did have Zimmerman kind of messier and, you know, nervous ticks or ums or his speech pattern was very naturalistic. And I thought it was really great for Bob to differentiate those characters. Definitely. And I would just want to reemphasize kudos to Alex Singer and the production team for really

making that split screen quite seamless. I mean, you really, you weren't jarred out of watching this episode while watching that. everything flowed very smoothly. So that's a tribute to singer and the production team. Yeah, great team. Sure. They have the scene at Jupiter Station and Zimmerman comes up with a solution to, when he realizes he's been running for two years, he was never intended to run that long.

He wants to re-initialize the program, but he says that, you know, that'll completely start him over, that everything that's happened for the last two years will disappear and he'll start back to where he's go back to where he started. Zimmerman says let's re-initialize and if you re-initialize he will probably forget everything that's happened the last two years and Torres is like no we can't I can't accept that right now she says to Zimmerman something like you know if you had a patient you'd find out the sickness you know you'd find out um why the the circuits are degrading or why the sickness is there you'd try to you know solve that problem so she's sort of takes a beat on the whole kill him and restart him kind of solution.

Meanwhile, we go and we find Kim and Chikote analyzing this map of this part of space, and they have an idea that we can, you know, create this deflector, deflect the sensors, and we can sneak through this narrow path, and Tuvok really doesn't. He's more of Tuvok, like, he's not happy about it. And we go ahead and we enact this plan that Harry,

Chakote come up with. And here is the line. I've mistakenly assumed that this line has come from the episode Eye of the Needle, which is season one where we find the tiny wormhole and the futuristic Romulan played by Von Armstrong. And I, for years at Star Trek conventions, I talk about the strangest line that Harry Kim has ever said. And I say, it's from that episode. And that Captain And Janeway says, did the probe go through? And I answer, like a snake through a tube, okay? But that is not from Eye of the Needle. No, it's this.

I remember. Yeah, it's from this episode. One of the fans pointed that out to me. They said, no, it's not from that episode. It's from the swarm. It was a weird line. Yeah, it's a weird line because we basically put into effect the plan that we have come up with to get through the sensor net.

And I say, I think we did it, Captain, like a snake through the tube. I don't even say a tube. I see the tube, like a snake through the tube. Which again, do snakes like tubes? Do they go through them a lot? Yeah. What the heck? I don't know.

It's a weird metaphor that you come up with. So weird. So we try the plan. It works for a second and we go to warp. But guess what? There's a resonant particle wave that is damping our warp field. So we're losing speed. It's a drag on the engines.

That's right. Drag on the engines. And we have to figure out what the heck is going on. And I must say, I am very happy with Kim's hair in this episode Kim's hair looks great This is a good hair episode

Good hair episode Well that's what matters the most Garrett As we all know Jupiter Station Right we're back into that Yes we're back there This is where Doc does not know

Who Kess is He's actually deteriorated to the point That he forgot who Kess is What was beautifully done Because Kess goes in And Zimmerman says Like the doctor doesn't speak much Kess is going in there and telling Zimmerman all all these qualities of the doctor and their

friendship and all and Zimmerman's like oh yeah well if he's your friend uh let's see hey doc do you know this woman is this your friend and he looks at her and goes no i don't know who she is such a sad moment it was very sad for me it really was made it's sad for me too because you know when i was young my my grandfather um developed Alzheimer's and it was just as you see someone that you know that you're related to that you're close with that you've admired or you've looked up to your entire childhood and then you start seeing that person's mind slowly slowly but surely get worse and worse and this this literally for me was like a a bit of a you know it really stirred up those memories for me and it was difficult for me to watch that so yeah I can

imagine I can imagine it's a horrible disease all Alzheimer's. And I think Bob did a beautiful job in this episode of doing a science fiction version of that. And I think, yeah, I'm sure a lot of people can relate to it. And I think it was a great idea from the writers to do the story. So yeah, yeah. By the way, we go back to the bridge. Okay. We go back to the bridge. And Janeway is talking about telling a story of when she was a kid or something. Oh, yeah. You used to sneak out. And Paris said something like, why'd you sneak out or something right yeah could i guess could i guess where you snuck out to captain what the frick that's like snakes through a tube it's like what that's what that was so bizarre

what was he implying with that i don't know yeah were you being creepy what were you doing seemed like i was being creepy yeah it was kind of like yeah yeah i'd like to get Guess where you snuck out to, Captain. I bet you got some nasty stories. What are you doing later, Captain? Yeah, sneak out together. We can sneak. Hey, Captain, it's Tom.

I just want to sneak out with you at some point. What do you think? Yeah. All right. So talking about that, Paris gets a little creepy. Wait a minute. Wait a way. I'm going to stop you for a second.

What? Maybe that line happened because Torres turned you down for the Lake Como thing. Oh, yeah. So then you thought, all right, maybe I'll flirt with Captain Janeway again. We had a little flirtation before a prior episode in a shuttle. So it could be. All right. So then we see a ship on sensors.

We get a little closer and the ship is beat to crap. It has been damaged very severely. They scan for life signs, one survivor. And Janeway says beam into the sick bay. So this alien Chartis is in sick bay. What's his name? Chartis, I think. Is that it?

That's what I wrote down. But when you first said it, you said chart. Chartis. Which is, you know what that is. Chartis. When you try to. Yes. We all know what Chartis is.

I was like, that's a horrible name for an alien. Chartis was a Mislin or Mislan alien. I didn't even get his name. I wrote that down. I noted that as we, but anyway, they were attacked by sworn vessels. He's dying. He says, tell my people what happened to us. know and then he dies but i gotta say that was a bad makeup alien that was just it looked like a clown

it was just it was colorful it was red and green and yellow hair was when he was yeah that's when he was being beat up and it just didn't look good it didn't look good to me and i love michael west more in our whole team but that one just looked not not great well you said he's from this what did you say mislin is what you said is what I wrote down. Because when he's on the bed and he's talking to Janeway, it sounds like I kept rewinding it. It sounds like he says,

I come from this, this, it sounds like Island, but he says, but then after reminding it, it sounds like I come from this land that is, you know, far, far, in the yellow dwarf system.

Oh, interesting. Yeah, so that's what Megan and I heard. We heard this land instead of Missland, but maybe it is Missland. Okay. I don't know. he's dead and we're probably not going to go by there so because we're going to the swarm's going to attack us and we're all going to die I don't want to right and the doctor the doctor is further

deteriorated he says you know he's he's a sick man this is where sick people come and he's completely very funny it was adorable and sad at the same time it was adorably sad yeah and kess is very sad and it's just sad yeah the doctor is losing his memory and he's he's dying in a sense he's deteriorating so let's see we go back to the bridge and the universal translator is not working because one of these ships sorry i skipped a beat but one of these shuttles that was attached to that damaged ship detaches they didn't notice that before it detaches detects us yep sends a polar on burst which changes our shield polarity so now we're like a christmas tree according to chicote everyone can see where we're at lit up like a christmas tree yeah it takes off back to the rest of the

swarm and now they are in, you know, they are in full pursuit. They know that we're there. And yeah, those little ships, what do it look like to you? What did those little ships look like to you? They look like pill bugs or something to me. They look like a little insect. Like rolypollies? Rolley polis, yeah. Or maybe even like a horseshoe crab, you know, kind of like that kind of segmented body. Yeah, it was, yeah, but roly polly is a good way. I wonder if other people call it roly-poly in other parts of like in england pillbugs roly pollies do they say roly polly that's definitely an american thing i think i don't know i think roly polis and pillbugs are aliens who came from another planet by the way um you stand by that i do i stand by that

yep roly polis are aliens hey all right so we head to engineering um where balana is trying to realign the dilithium matrix and jaymway's like look we don't even enough time. We need to do this while we're traveling at warp. So Balana freaks out. She says to Nicoletti, hey, we got to figure out a dilithium realignment on the fly, which is without killing everybody. So, you know, a hard task for engineering. But I think Balana's up to it. So she's going to figure something out. Then we jump back to Sick Bay where Kess is trying to keep the doctor from leaving sickbay because he doesn't even know that he has, you know, he's a holographic projection. He thinks he can just walk out, right?

I can't do that. And it's, again, very sad to watch this. A constant deterioration of his all of his synapses. And he sort of is having memories, some memories in the scene, but it's a classic sort of Alzheimer's kinds of situation

of random scattered memories that are sort of mixed up and not quite right. And I thought Bob did a great job. And so did Jen Jennifer Lean did a great job and Kess goes and begs for help on the on the bridge and uh she asked for Harry

she goes can Harry come because you know Harry knows this kind of stuff right but we're in the middle of a battle and you know how I know that because Janeway's hair is falling down clearly we must be in battle because the hair is coming down so it was like one one shake and that hairstyle

just fell right out it's like clink it was gone go ahead so Jane Way's hair is falling down. The swarm is gaining Jupiter Station. We go back there to the Haldon program with Jupiter Station, where Kess is the one who comes up with a brilliant idea of grafting Zimmerman's matrices onto the doctor. So sort of a last second, last ditch effort. And kudos to Kess, my goodness. I mean, look how smart she is, right? By the way, in the Jupiter station scene, I did notice the prop. that Bob Picardo was using as Zimmerman,

I never saw that prop before. It was like a pad, but it was larger and just a stranger shape. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. I wonder what the history of that pad was maybe to other shows to next gen because often we would use props sometimes from other shows that didn't fit in our timeline or in our space. And so I don't know, I just thought that was an unusual pad. Yeah.

What would be working on. Hmm. Okay. I didn't notice that, but I will have to watch that again. Now, when we're back on the bridge, when we go back to the bridge, we come across a very tongue-twister techno-babel phrase. We figure out that these swarm-like ships are emitting interferometric pulses, an interferometric pulse, which causes everything we do to kind of bounce. right back on to us. So we're not sure what to do about that.

But at least we know that that is the issue. We know what's going on. And that swarm was scary looking. All those pill bugs. It looked like a gaseous anomaly from Tuvok. Yes, it did. Almost as scary. Not quite as scary as that, but almost.

We go back to Sick Bay and we're preparing for this matrix overlay program and reboot and stuff. But I got a question, who is the guard in the room? Like, why is there this guard by the door? I don't know if you noticed that, but I was like, we never have guards. Yes. Maybe if there's like an alien in sick bay that we've arrested or something like that. But I was like, why that seemed like a very random thing anyway.

Do you think Kess requested that guard to help her wrangle the doctor? Maybe. From kind of like leaving or trying to leave again, you know? Maybe. But it was odd. I saw her standing there. I was like, why? Okay.

Yeah. She is definitely a member of the security. She's a security member, right? She's wearing the gold, which is security. And it made no sense to me either. Yeah, it seems strange to me, too. So while that's the reboots happening and the swarms clamping on and they're forming a lattice and aliens start beaming onto our bridge. Our ship. Our ship, and we fight them off, hand-to-hand combat. In fact, Paris takes a big dive at one of them and knocks him down, and then Janeway steps around and bam. Yes. That was kind of cool. Yeah, and you're skipping a beat. Harry discovers the pattern.

Harry discovers the pattern under interferometric pulse. It is a lattice. They're connected to each other. So if we do one thing, if we take out one ship, it should explode the other ships around it. And then, of course, Tuvok, the party pooper, he says, hey, but that'll just bounce it right back to us if we try to destroy the one ship. But then Janeway says, well.

Janeway comes up with her brilliant idea. Right. So reverse the polarity or something. Yes. And that idea is, you know, really smart to basically inverse the harmonics of the shield. So that we will end up being able to actually shoot that alien ship. I want to bring this up. When you tackled him,

I do find that this is more of an American thing. Okay? Like for instance, like, okay, like something that you used to do to me, like when we were not on camera, like at craft service, you would do this, you'd kind of like just kind of

with both of your hands, palms open, you'd shove me. You'd just kind of shove me out of the blue. You were weird. Like, I don't know. Like you would do that a lot. And it was sort of like a big, brother teasing a little brother and you just kind of shoved me and I go hey and I do remember this now

and I didn't say anything to you I'd be sitting there grabbing something to eat and you'd come up and you'd look at me and you'd even say hi to me you'd just go bam and I think part of it was like you were thinking god you single lucky bastard you you don't have to worry about kids or you know family yeah you're mad at me subconsciously so you gave me that little poop well I dove at the alien and then we, you know, we come back, they do, back in sick bay, Kess is nervous, but she does activate the EMH. This is where we call the EMH for the first time, I think. He does not recognize Kess. Belana, he says, is someone sick? You know, why are you, where are you activating me? Is someone sick? And Belana fakes a headache. She's like, yeah, so I've got a headache.

And he comes over, he's like, I don't know, but okay, I'll prescribe you something. And they're both sort of sad. Torres and Kess both feel like, okay, well, he's lost all his memory. He walks around in the other room, and you hear him preparing the medicine, and he starts humming, singing the opera. Yeah.

And it was beautiful. It was beautifully. Yeah, I thought it was great. So I think it's very open-ended. Like, obviously he remembers something, but I'm curious to see as we watch the next few episodes, if they deal with this much. like his memories coming back

or do we just jump back to him already completely restored to his... Restored. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. I think it's going to be the latter. He just jumps back to being the regular doctor again. I think it is too. I have a feeling

it will be, but that was kind of the structure of our show. What is your lesson, Robbie, from this episode? What's your lesson slash theme? My lesson slash theme is, I guess in one hand, it's a question. It's like how important our memories and how do those memories shape who we are now today because that's sort of what the doctors to me that's the heart of the swarm and and those aliens whatever that's a

fine you know ship story but the doctor's story is the is the emotional core of the episode and um you know everyone really wanted the doctor to keep his memories because that made him who he was and so I guess on one hand it's like how important are those memories and clearly in this story was saying they're very important and the other lesson for me is like meaningful experiences that we have in life are never truly lost no matter how much time goes by no matter how much we may just like for our years on Star Trek like our years making Voyager's seven years there's a lot of things I know it's a joke that I say oh I can't remember, but I know somewhere in my subconscious, those experiences are still very much alive

and they're part of what makes me who I am today. Whether I can consciously remember every detail or not, that would be my lesson. I like that. And I'm going to suggest we've already discussed compiling all of our hikus and our Limericks into a book form at the end of this whole review of all the Voyager episodes. I also suggest that we include the life lesson slash theme from each episode that both of us talk about. I mean, that's a great idea. Because there's a nice little filler. There is a lot of good lessons. So many. I mean, that's what at the heart of Star Trek, that's what it does best is kind of reflect on the human experience in a really profound way in a way that we can all relate to. So yeah. My,

My lesson or theme is related to this episode, but more indirectly and more about Blas Bacardo off camera. And the fact that Italian opera was utilized was, in my opinion, because of his persistence. And I do believe that that is the lesson for this episode, is that you must have persistence. You must engage in persistence because, let's face it, life doesn't always. hand you a bed of roses you know there's a lot of times it hands you lemons and you kind of and what do you do with those lemons you can either just sit there and scrunch up your face as you're eating them or you can turn that into lemonade and and the persistence is really turning

into lemonade you've got to keep keep on that path until you get what you need and really Bob Ricardo did that I didn't you know I didn't follow that path I asked or I pitched an idea for Kim for Harry and when it was shot down or there was no interest I took that as a no and I never tried again and I mean and a lot of times this is this will happen in life you know someone will say gosh I would love to I would love to be a ballet dancer and then someone to say well you're too tall for that or you're to you know fill in the blank and they'll say you're right I quit I'm not going to I'm not going to try it so really persistence is a really good quality the captain said let's just reboot the doctor initially yeah and if

kess had not been very persistent if jennifer lean had not been as as um strong and committed to finding a better solution and torres and all of that yeah we wouldn't have had the doctor he would have been started over as a whole new person exactly there you go speaking of the doctor uh so this was a great recap For our patrons, stick with us. We've got Mr. Robert Picardo to share some of his memories on The Swarm and this episode in our bonus material. For everybody else, thanks. We'll see you next week for our next episode.

Do you know what the next episode is? Yes, it's called False Profits. So stay tuned for next week's episode, False Profits. All right, guys, thank you so much. Patreon patrons, stay tuned. See you soon. You know,

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