The Delta Flyers - The Void

Episode Date: May 29, 2023

The Delta Flyers is a weekly Star Trek: Voyager rewatch & recap podcast hosted by Garrett Wang & 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 Void. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars. The Void:The Voyager is sucked into an inert layer of subspace from which no-one has ever escaped, and where the trapped ships must compete with each other for resources to survive.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise & Rebecca McNeillAnd a special thanks to our Ambassadors, the guests who keep coming back, giving their time and energy into making this podcast better and better with their thoughts, input, and inside knowledge: Lisa Klink, Martha Hackett, Robert Picardo, Ethan Phillips, Robert Beltran, Tim Russ, Roxann Dawson, Kate Mulgrew, Brannon Braga, Bryan Fuller, & John EspinosaAdditionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co-Executive Producers: Stephanie Baker, Philipp Havrilla, Liz Scott, Eve England, Sab Ewell, Sarah A Gubbins, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Daniel de Rooy, Chris Knapp, Michelle Z, Janet K Harlow, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Courtney Lucas, Matthew Gravens, Brian Barrow, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Heidi Mclellan, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, John Espinosa, E, Deike Hoffmann, Mike Gu, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Vikki Williams, Kelly Brown, Lee Lisle, Mary Beth Lowe, William McEvoy, Sarah Thompson, Samantha Hunter, Holly Smith, Amy Tudor, Jamason Isenburg, Adm. Bill "Seoulman" Yu, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Ashley Stokey, Zachary Upton, Lucas Shuck, Lori Tharpe, Mary Burch, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Dominique Weidle, Lisa Robinson, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Alex Mednis, AJ Freeburg, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Barbara S., Tim Beach, Ariana, Meg Johnson, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, Holly Schmitt, James H. Morrow, Christopher Arzeberger, Megan Chowning, Tae Phoenix, Nicole Anne Toma, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Daniel O’Brien, Bronwen Duffield, Andrew Duncan, Lauren Wolffe, David Buck, Jeremy Mcgraw, Ali S, Danie Crofoot, Ian Ramsey, Feroza Mehta, Michael Dismuke, Jonathan Brooks, Gemma Laidler, Rob Traverse, Penny Liu, Matt Norris & Stephanie LeeAnd our Producers:James Amey, Patrick Carlin, Richard Banaski, Ann Harding, Ann Marie Segal, Chloe E, Nathanial Moon, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Jocelyn Pina, Mike Schaible, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Maxine Soloway, Barbara Beck, Species 2571, Mary O'Neal, Aithne Loeblich, Dat Cao, Scott Lakes, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Tara Polen, Jenna Appleton, Jason Potvin, Cindy Ring, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, Mark G Hamilton, Rob Johnson, Maria Rosell, Heather Choe, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Jennifer Jelf, Justin Weir, Mike Chow, Kevin Hooker, Aaron Ogitis, Jonathan Neal, Ryan Benoit, Rachel Shapiro, Eric Kau, Captain Jak Greymoon, David Wei Liu, Clark Ochikubo, David J Manske, Roxane Ray, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, E.G. Galano, Cindy Holland, Will Forg, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Russell Nemhauser, Lawrence Green, Christian Koch, Lisa Gunn, Lauren Rivers, Shane Pike, Jennifer B, Dean Chew, Akash Patel, Corey Dennis, Cameron Wilkins, Michael Butler, Ken McCleskey, & Walkerius LogosThank 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, and welcome to the Delta Flyers with Tom and Harry. As we journey through episodes of Star Trek Voyager, your two hosts along this journey are my fellow Voyager actor Garrett Wong, who in 2012 played the outgoing crew captain in the film Rock Jocks. and myself, your favorite helmsman, Robert Duncan McNeil. Remember, you can get the full version of this podcast and lots more bonus material by signing up to become a patron at patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers. Robbie, hello.

Rock jocks, huh? I know. What was that? 2012. Yeah, that was like another independent film. I was the king of independent films at some point. I was just doing one after the other. It was kind of like a team of nerds that their whole job is sort of to try to repel

asteroids that are kind of coming into Earth's trajectory kind of a thing, you know? So we're kind of like, kind of like a, I don't know, it's the Star Wars program, yeah, where we're sort of that our whole thing is we're a group of nerds and I'm the, I guess I'm the day shift leader or whatever. And then after we're done, we leave. We hand it off to the next shift. And the next shift is the main cast. So this is a supporting character.

Yeah. So had a lot of fun doing it. Yeah. Who else was in it? The queen of the nerds, the redhead gal. Oh, my. Oh, Felicia Day. Yes, Felicia Day.

I always forget her name. The queen of the nerds. The queen of the nerds. Oh, my guy. I love Felicia Day. Great, great, great person. But with my old age, I forget everyone's name. so yeah same same yeah well that sounds fun so this week we are going to rewatch or maybe watch

or maybe watch for the first time yes avoid the void void is our episode this week i'm so excited it's so interesting because you know when we started this whole podcast i i kept saying i saw everything i saw every episode i saw but hey season seven it's like a new show to me it really There's so many episodes that I did not see in their entirety. I do remember filming certain scenes, you know. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's just, it's like a new. That's a fun thing about this rewatch is like we're both remembering things that are deep in our brain somewhere.

You know, there's like moments or scenes or days of filming, a little detail. So, well, let's go watch The Void. Okay. And we will be right back with our discussion and recap of the episode, The Void. Void. See you soon, everyone. We are back. I'm watching the void. Wow. We went into the void. We did go into the void. We were such in the void. I had to take a shower and I've done my hair up nice.

So I'm not wearing my baseball cap anymore. That's what the void does see. You got a shower after you. I did have to shower after the void. You can counter the void. Okay. Definitely. You need a shower. Here's my haiku. Yes. I'm just jumping right into it. Here's my I go for The Void. Stars have gone astray. Ship raiding to stay alive. Team up to get out.

Oh, I like the last line. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. Good last line. Okay, here's our limerick for The Boyd. It goes a little something like this. Into the void, Voyager finds it's arrived.

And the new neighbor's charms have taken a nosedive. But Tomey's Doc's new best friend, Janeway's goal at the end is those that work together will surely survive. Oh, okay. Yeah, you pulled it up, pulled it together very nice. Yeah, yeah. I didn't know where you were going for a second. I'm like, oh, my gosh. Maybe he's lost, but then you found your way.

I did. I found no way. Yeah, you've got to work together to survive. That's, yes. Janeway knows how to do it. Oh, goodness. So The Void, teleplayed by Raph Green, James Kahn, story by Riff Green, and Ken Biller, directed by Mike Vahar. I think I got that right.

You got that right. Go buy a lottery ticket. Go buy a lottery ticket. But yes, you got the Vahar right. And did either of us get the writer correct? I don't think so. I don't think so. Yeah.

But yes, very interesting story. It had some really great moments. I thought Mike did a great job. Love Mike Fahar. Always love Mike Fahar. Yeah. Let's talk about the cast. Sure.

guest stars, Robin Sacks, who played General Vailen. His very first credit is a film called Vampire Circus, 1972. Now, he also has a TV credit, which is 1972, so I gave both. The TV credit is a TV show called Love and Mr. Lewisham. So I think this might be a British show, possibly. Oh, yes, probably. Yes. Robin passed away, unfortunately, at the age of 61, at the tender age of 61 in 2013. Young man. Young man, really. Yeah. So Robin played.

I'm sorry. Robert played. General Valen. He's the first alien in the void that we see on the view screen. He comes over to us. He's got the lines on his face, you know, the sort of bronzeish makeup. Yeah, a little, yeah, definitely. A little Cardassian.

Okay. Paul Wilson, who played Loquhar. I love those guys. Loquhar. He was like the hippopotamus-looking ones, right? Yeah, he's the more. Yes. They look like, they were the aliens.

Okay. Do you recognize those aliens? Yeah. There were the, what were they called? The watchers or the viewers. They had an assignment and they had to just watch and observe. That's that race, which I've forgotten the name. But those are cool aliens, definitely.

Love those aliens. Very first credit for Mr. Wilson, who played LeBouard, is a 1970 film by the name of the Strawberry Statement. Yeah. not a not a not a very no known film but yes that's the very first credit uh scott lawrence who played garen now garren was the alien yeah sclorence was the one in the red you know the aliens that had the red uniform now you know the whole time i was watching this episode i kept saying why is scott lawrence so familiar to me well uh i put two and two together while i was

doing credit scott lawrence looks like the grown up adult version of the young actor that played Webster. Maybe. Emmanuel Lewis. I mean, although Emmanuel Lewis now as an adult does not look anything like Scott Lawrence because Emmanuel Lewis has some type of liver, some type of medical or health condition, which prevents him from growing to a full size, right, to adult size. But if he was not afflicted with such medical ailment or condition, he would look like Scott Lawrence.

I also read Scott Lawrence. his voice sounded so familiar. Okay. And I realized he did the Darth Vader voice for all the Star Wars. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right.

And James Earl Jones was his in an episode of LA law with him, right? Oh, my goodness. Look at you. Did you do the research on this or do you know him? Sometimes he was so familiar. I had to look up his friend. That's why you looked it up. He's the one that I looked up.

Yeah. Because I was like, how do I know this guy? but yeah he's he was awesome well when i was looking at his stuff i saw you know sometimes at the bottom of the credits you see a thing that a section that says self like if you were interviewed for something and they produced it and aired it then you would have a credit like self and he had a credit for self for star war celebration and i was like what because i'm a big star wars fan so and celebration is the massive convention that happens every year that's sanctioned by lucas and um wow i was like wait a minute what did he do and then i noticed he has done every incarnation of a Star Wars video game as the voice of Darth Vader since the dawn of time. So the 80s or 90s. Like forever since he was a young man.

Basically, that's been bread and butter for him, for sure. So doing that voice. And I understand because James Earl Jones supposedly has been a stutterer his entire life, right? And so for him to get to not stutter, he has to know those lines backwards and forwards so that he's ready to go. Like if you gave him a script change

or if you gave him like new pages, he would crumble and collapse. He doesn't have the time to rehearse it and get it going. And that's what I know, what I've heard about James Roe Jones. So naturally, if they're going to do a Darth Vader voice in a video game, they need somebody with a really low resonant voice

that can imitate James Earl Jones but doesn't have the issues that James Jones does in articulating those lines, right? And it's probably a lot cheaper than James So there's that. Well, maybe he should have come in saying, I am Emmanuel Lewis from Webster. I demand a higher pay rate on this. You know, I don't know.

You're right. Much cheaper than James Roe Jones. But his very, very first credit was on a TV show that you also acted on. Murder She Wrote. Really? Yeah, 1987. 1988. What year did you do your murder, she wrote?

Was it? It's probably like 91, 92. Early 90s. Okay. So he was mid-80s. One, two, three, even maybe 93. Yeah. I can't remember.

Scott Lawrence was also in Star Trek Into Darkness, the feature film. Oh, yeah. Saw that. Yeah, JJ, the second one that JJ directed. And also a one Star Trek video game. He did a video game for a Trek concept as well. And, but again, voice of Darth Vader. A lot of nerd cred with Scott Lawrence.

I thought he was great. Yeah. Jonathan DeLarko. Oh, yes. I did not put that together until the very end when I happened to notice it because I was looking up, Scott Lawrence. And I saw, wait a minute, Jonathan Del Arco. I was so shocked. I was like, what is he?

He actually worked on our show. So I knew Jonathan before, before Voyager because I was taking acting acting class over with Cory Allen and Margie Haber doing an audition technique. And that's where I bumped into. not only Chase Masterson from the Star Trek world, but also Jonathan DeLarko, who had already done Hugh Borg, the character of Hugh Borg, very popular from TNG, a lot of a lot of nerd tread there. But he was always making fun of me. Because when I booked, when I booked Voyager, I think because he was such a popular character on TNG, I think he felt that he had an end, that he was probably going to book a series regular on Voyager. And when it didn't happen,

and I booked it, I knew him, and I knew him back in the day, every time he saw, me, he would, he would say things like, your ship looks like a spoon and then walk away from me like that. It became this game that we would play. Like he would say some really derogatory thing about, you know, or your ship looks like a toilet lid cover or things like that, you know, it's just to get at me. And so now I get to say to him, you see, you see the karma that you brought upon yourself, you did get on Voyager, but no one knows it's you. You're completely covered up and you're some small little creature that runs around. So I can mess with him. He was great.

He was very, I love the physicality. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's harder. Maybe they hired a dancer or something. When you have no lines, isn't that harder to act with zero lines? Yeah. So Delarco did a good job as Fantome. His very first credit is a 1987 episode of Miami Vice.

Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. It must have been living in Florida or something. Something. Yeah. Because they cast a lot of Florida actors. And we have one other actor who is credited at the end as a co-star, Michael Seamus Wiles, who played Bozol, Bozal, Bozal, Bozal, Bozal, something like that. B-O-S-A-A-L.

He was in a 1982 short film called Divided We Fall. That was his very, very first credit, yes. And I think, if I'm not mistaken, this is the alien. He's the alien that was in cahoots with us. He was in our little alliance. And then he did some really bad thing to, you know, to get that Polaron inverter. Oh, yeah, that's right. He ended up killing other aliens to get out of.

Yeah. And so Janeway boots them. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I think that's Bosel. Bosel. Okay. Basel. Okay. Basel. All right. There you go. Those are our peeps. Let's jump into this. Let's jump into this. Exterior adventure. Yes. Exterior space shot to begin. Voyager moving at impulse power. And then we jump right into the mess hall. Nice little establishing shot cameras moving. We see Neelick serving the third course. And it's a very, very nice tablecloth there. It's set up very formal. Very formal. We never see tablecloths. No. No, very, very. And look who's at the table. Look who came to dinner. Look who's coming to dinner. Janeway, Chicote, Paris, and Torres. They're having dinner. It's a bit of an odd like dinner party. I've got to be honest. But I want to say this is also a very rare JC slash PT shippers moment. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Because what is this essentially? This is basically a double date. Thank you. For sure. So this is the penultimate moment for the shippers of both JC and PT to just, you know, be excited about something like this. What's going on?

Because if it wasn't that, Harry would have been there. But Harry's not there, right? I mean, it would have been more people. There would have been more of the main players there. No, it was a double date. This is a double date. I'm going to say that right there. Janeway jumps into it.

She goes, my compliments to the chef, the camera then reveals it's not Neelix. It's seven. Seven. My gosh. I thought Paris was a little like snarky. Paris and Torres, honestly. Like, you know, when Torres goes, oh, it just keeps getting better. It was so dripping with sarcasm when she was like, when Neelix says he'd hang up his apron,

Paris says something like, oh, that'd be a real tragedy, looking at Chikote. And I was like, God, why is anybody so snarky in that? Can't we just have a nice meal? Why does everybody have to be throwing jabs at everybody? It didn't play like that. It played more like you were having fun. Like you guys were, yeah, it wasn't like, you know, oh, you stupid seven of an eye. How dare you?

I'm going to be snarky to you. I didn't get that at all. So if you got that, I'm sorry. I did not. So I'm okay with that. Harris does ask for some salt, though, at a certain point. And she's like, you don't need any seasoning. Additional seasoning.

And she goes, if it's not, if it's not up to your liking, then I'll just replicate you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I'm like, why didn't he just say yes? That sounds delicious. Yeah. Yeah. I would totally take a peanut butter and jelly sandwich over that fancy white table. Right. And that line to me is her playing around with you, playing back, right? So you can, you can kind of interpret it however you like. I have childish tastes. Well, you, yes. Or, no, I'm not going to say that. You have an unrefined palette. A palette that just likes the plain meat and potatoes. That's it. Right. So that's all. I'm not going to. I say childish. But still, this is, I, to me, it's just playful. And you can also interpret it as

snark versus snark if you want, but I'm not going to go there. I'm going to say it's fine. The minute I saw Jerry Ryan, did you immediately think about the restaurant that she opened in LA the minute you saw her cooking? That's funny. That's what I thought about. I'm like, oh my gosh, because she ended up not marrying the girlfriend of Brandon Braga any longer and then marrying a chef who I think at the time was the top three chefs in the, nation at the time. And then they opened, yeah, they opened a restaurant. Yeah, it's called Ortolan.

And we had one Voyager Boys dinner there, and that's the one that I missed. And I'm so bummed that I missed that. Yes, I was super, super bummed. It was fun, but I got to admit it wasn't the same as our normal Palm Steakhouse. There was something nice about the steakhouse, the tradition of like, we would go to the same steakhouse over and over. We would. And it was really comfy, we just like comfort food.

Yes. That restaurant was our comfort food restaurant because we went there so many times. But still, Jerry put so much time into that restaurant of hers. I mean, she's not doing the cooking. Her husband is. And she's not even on the line. She's not a sous chef. She doesn't, you know, prep cook or anything like that. But she was there. Working the room. She was the hostess. She was answering the phones. She was managing it. She was, you name it. She was doing it. And she was there on a nightly, you know, if she wasn't working, acting on something, she was there. So, yeah, yeah. Anyway, let's move on to the shipshake. Moving on to shipshake, I love it about the ship shake. Because that was white tablecloth and all this formal dinnerware, you heard this sort of rattling, which we never hear. Because the ship is so sturdy. Whenever we have shipshakes on the bridge, you don't hear any noises.

But this one had like, you know, China and silverware rattling. It was going everywhere. Yeah, I liked it. Yeah, I did like it. Janeway hails the bridge, asked for a report. We hear Tuvok, actually we go to the bridge. We see Tuvok is sitting in the captain's chair. And he says that we're being pulled off course by some kind of graviton surge.

We jump back to Mess Hall. Janeway says, on my way, and she leaves with the gang in tow for the bridge. Exterior space shot. What did you think of that very first visual effect of being pulled into the anomaly? It looked like a whirlpool in space. And I wrote, why are we flying right at it? Like, who is flying the show? We're trying.

This is Tom's fault. This is what happened when you go on a double date with the captain? Actually, it's not Tom's fault because he's at dinner. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. I don't know. We're flying right at the World Bowl. I don't understand.

Yeah. I think what it is is we're being pulled towards it. We're trying to get away. Okay. But I will say, because you were on a double date, you really weren't there to kind of, you know, pilot the ship away from this. This is all Tom's fault. I never thought of it.

Yeah. pretty much. We're on the bridge. And as Janeway enters from the bridge from the entrance closest to operations, Harry does inform her that we have rerouted all of our available power to the thrusters, but we just cannot break free. And Janeway says, try reversing the shield polarity. Nope, that doesn't work. Another huge shipshake. And we jump back to Mess Hall where Neelix and. Well, I thought it was you for a second. I did too. I was making notes. And I was And when I looked up, I go, wow, Tom just, that's, that's not Tom. I did too.

I thought it was me too. And then I'm like, who is this guy? No, we've never had this tall, blonde guy that basically is your, the broke version of you. Why, what, who is he? He's in every scene with Neelix in the episode. Exactly. Moving forward, he's in all these scenes helping Neelix. I'm like, why?

I thought he was security because while you guys are eating, he's standing off to the back, okay? he's very very he's not he's not focused on it all or featured while you guys are having dialogue at dinner but then later of course when the ship shakes and everything falls over you see clearly it's him and neelix that's it those are the only two player people on the on camera but i thought he was security at first then i then i thought there's no way because security is always in gold they're not in red so why would he be security at this double date dinner so very strange we don't know why yeah don't know who he is but he shows up a lot Yeah, he does.

But everyone falls to the ground, right? Neelix gets up and he notices that there's no stars. He says, what happened to the stars? And we see through the mess hall windows, we see a vessel that is approaching very quickly. The vessel starts firing upon us and we jump over to the bridge. We try to hail them, no response. Chautet says, this ship is Vodwar. And we've encountered the Vodwar before.

We know who these guys are. But the interesting thing is that this Vodwar, ship also has technology from several different species incorporated into that ship systems, which is very odd. Yeah. So we're like, what's going on? So another ship arrives and starts firing on the first ship. So the first ship ends up high tailing it out of there.

And so we think, ooh, sigh of relief, we've got a friend. But then that second ship starts firing at us as well. They penetrate our aft shields. And that's when we have a little montage of all the things that are being transported off a Voyager. stolen off of Voyager. Before they steal all our stuff, I just want to say something for a minute. Say it. Janeway says evasive pattern

beta 6 to Tom. Yeah. And that we cut out to space just as the as the ship the new ship comes in and fires on the first ship. Right. And Janeway's like, let's get out of here. Avasive pattern beta 6. Which by the way, we talked about

this in our bonus material about the concept of if Tom was the greatest pilot, it in Starfleet ever. Yeah. Wouldn't need the science-based captain to come up with strategic moves. He would know the smartest move. But anyway, he waits for her order.

I guess evasive pattern beta 6, when we cut out to space, it's like we came to a skidded to a stop. Yeah. Backed up. We did like a backup and spin. If you were in a car, this would be like a Dukes of Hazard move. We like skidded. We backed up.

As we backed up, we spun out. and turn the other way. It was a cool move, but I was like, why did Janeway? You wouldn't know that, but all evasive pattern, beta, six. But it's cool, though. I loved your description. Why isn't everybody going, Tom, that evasive pattern beta six was the greatest beta six ever? Why aren't they doing that?

She should have said, she should have said, Mr. Paris, evasive pattern, Paris special. And then you would have done a little thing like that, right? Yes. I just want to say when you just described the captain being the science-based captain, the way you said that, all I could think of was plant-based, Bill in the Black. So the plant-based captain, basically, because you have plant-based this, plant-based that, and you worded it as science-based captain, which is I love, she is, and I've never heard of her described that way.

So I just want to say thank you for- She's science-based. Tom is speed-based, and he should be taking care of business, which calls her. Clearly, he did. Nobody's commenting on how awesome it was. I got to watch that move again. I've never seen that move before. I think I always write notes down when that move happened. It was a good move.

Okay. Good to know. Let's go back to your stealing stuff. Stealing. So the stealing happens. The transporting happens. Transporting off of Voyager onto that alien ship. Cargo Bay.

You're seeing containers disappear there. Hydroponics, all the plants, everything gone. Engineering a computer console. and we fire, but the ship ends up going to warp. Janeway says to Paris, follow that vessel. Paris says nav sensors are malfunctioning. Janeway wants a damage report, lost report. Also wants to know where the heck we are,

because at this point, we're in the middle of nothing, right? So we don't know, up or down, nothing. Yeah, Jacote says they took more than 90% of our food stores. Holy, holy. That's cleaning out our fridge. They literally, they left us ketchup, relish, and a mustard container. And they catch a packet, right?

They didn't even give us a whole thing. It's just like a ketchup packet. They left us the same packets. I mean, what's up with that? A computer console from engineering, mtie three of our Deuterium tanks. Paris then says, why would they take Deuterium? You can find it anywhere. And Seven says, well, anywhere but here.

She doesn't detect any gases, any stellar bodies or any matter of any kind, except for the ships that attacked us. That's it. We're in a void. We're in a void. Two Vox scans and says there's 150 ships within our scanning range that I've detected, but only 29 of the 150 have life signs. Whoa.

That's sad. It's like ghost ships. Very sad. They're ghost ships. So Kim says that there is another vessel approaching at high impulse. They end up hailing us. And on screen, on the view screen, we see General Vailen. And General Vailen is basically saying, welcome to the void.

And he, you know, he comes off pretty nice. And Janeway is very wary. She's like, okay, you know, I'm ready to defend myself if you, you know, try any funny business. But he says, I'm really impressed how you fought off the other ships. And Janeway wants some more information. He's happy to provide it. And he beams over to us. Or maybe he takes a shuttle.

We don't know how he gets over. But we are in the briefing room now. In the briefing room, Valen's in there. He's describing the void to us. And he's standing by a monitor. I got to say. Yes. As he describes the void, I'm looking at the.

image of the void. Yeah. It looks like a giant energy donut. It's like, it looks like a donut. It's, it's round. Duncan donut or crispy cream? What do you, what are you saying? A big, a big, dunkin. And it's got these like funnel spikes coming out of it that I thought look like, like sparkly sprinkles. So it was like an energy donut with these sparkly sprinkles coming out of it. That's how I would describe Valen's image. See, your description of the void makes it sound enticing, like a place that I would like to live in with sprinkles. Well, that's why Tom wanted to fly into it because it looked like a donut and he loves donuts. Oh my gosh.

Yeah, Valen describes the energy donut, the void, and he says that you get pulled in by these funnels and it's huge. But the funnels only go one way. They don't go out. Yes. They only pull in. That's the bad part. He says they've been there more than five years. I generally thinks there's got to be a way out, but he goes, nope.

New arrivals always think there's a way out, but there's not. And let's see. She says, well, maybe you can help us with food and energy and things like that. And he says, well, I have some tactical data and some of the dangerous predators here. So I can share that with you. He mentions our photon torpedoes. Yeah, he wants those. And by the way, and I know what you thought.

The minute he says he wants photon torpedoes, I know. I sat there watching that. I said, I can see Robbie sitting in his chair watching this and going, we don't have any. We've already run out of them. We're at negative 54 right now. Yeah. If you do the count of how many we had in the beginning. We ran out like three seasons ago.

So we're negative. We're the negative photons. But he scanned them. Janeway clearly knows we don't have any, but she plays along. Like, we're not going to trade. We're not going to trade you any weapons. And then Valen, when he says, she says, we're not going to trade. he whispers.

Yeah. I thought his why not was very spooky, I got to say. Oh. He was spooky, Valen to me. He was, he was. Really? Yeah. I didn't get that at all.

My goodness. It's so funny how, you know, different people interpret things differently. He felt very, he felt like a, like a seductive evil devil guy, come to the dark sides. Become a pirate. Yeah. Yeah. But Janeway says, no way. I will not compromise my morality.

We are not going to trade weapons or plunder innocent ships. These are compromises I won't make. So she says no way. And he says, we'll see. We'll see. Yeah. These are compromises you won't make yet is what he's basically saying. Yeah.

Uh-huh. We go to engineering next. A great tilt down from the balcony down to the bottom of the warp core. It was a steady cam shot. I noticed a lot of steady cam in this episode, which I thought was a nice, nice. nice change because we don't often didn't often use steady cam on our show so no like per episode maybe one day right when there's some episodes we wouldn't use steady cam at all yeah correct absolutely yeah but this one i think he used it a couple of days a couple two three days because

yeah it wasn't quite a bit you don't want to remember more than anything else not just the steady cam operator but the other guy that's holding the cord to make sure the steady cam operator doesn't you know doesn't trip or just keep guiding him where if he's especially if he's if he has the camera and he's walking backwards, right? There has to be someone there to... Well, it's funny, I forgot about that. But back then, we shot on film cameras and there was a video tap so that people could look at monitors and see what the camera was seeing.

Yeah. But that at the time had to go through a wire. A wire. Yeah. So there was a grip who would cable, you know, pull all the cable. Yeah. And nowadays, there's... They don't do that anymore, do they?

No, there's a remote. It's all wireless. So you don't need a cable guy to, no, you just get your image. I mean, sometimes the image, you know, falls apart and you get away, hey, we lost our image and you wait for a second. But, yeah, I forgot there were cables. Yeah, and because I took such a long time off from Hollywood, literally I am, my thinking of production is still ancient from the 90s.

You see what I'm saying? So when I think of Steadicam, I think of the cable guy, making sure he doesn't trip on it. All gone. All gone by the way of the Dodo Bird. Okay. Where are we? We're in that great tilt down. Janeway asked for report.

Horace says that we're using power 10 times our normal rate. We're not even moving. And energy is just being sucked out of this. The anomaly is draining our warped war, basically. So we're going to run out of Deuterium in 10 days. That's not good. That's not good. No, that's bad.

Janeway says shut down all non-essential systems and we leave engineering trying to figure out what we're going to do. We go into Astromatrix. I love that Tom was sitting on the steps in this scene. I just want to say. I was like, Mr. Cool or Mr. Lazy. I'm not sure which, but. But it's a different move.

You don't see that blocking typically. Yeah. So I like it. It's funny because we've been watching Succession. Excession, HBO. Yep. And I've commented since the first season on that show that those characters love sitting in unconventional ways.

They'll sit in a chair backwards. They'll sit on the floor. they'll sit on tables, they'll sit on stairs, like nobody sits in a chair. So when I saw this, I was like, oh, that was like a succession thing. Like I sat on the steps. You know how with Paramount, it was Harry McCluggage, Paramount Television Group, saying if you can't get anything right, make sure the hair is right. So I wonder if there's some HBO exec that's all into like varied ways of sitting.

It's like, if you can't get anything right, make sure you sit a different way and a different, on a different piece of inanimate object as much as possible. I don't know. So, well, I think on succession, it was, it's, those characters sit, uh, however they want because they're not, they don't have to sit like a normal person. They don't have to be normal. Like, so that's part of the, that, oh, okay, so that's part of the character and the attitude showing that, look, and I think in a way, yeah, that we do whatever we want.

We do whatever we want. We don't have to sit in a chair. I can sit whatever I want. That is insane. So you take the character's traits and you put it into their blocking as, well, which is awesome. I think that's why I sat on the stairs in the scene is what I'm saying. Like, Tom, in a way, it was like, Mr. Rebel, cool guy or whatever.

The serious, you know, adults are going to stand over there, but he's Mr. Cool. He's going to sit on the, or lazy. I think you had your book close by. I think you had your book hidden close to there. You're like, you know what? I'm going to sit close to my book so I can read it between things. That's what I think you did. Probably.

Devin figures out how to predict where the funnels are going to show up. There's graviton forces that show up before funnels do. So we can predict where they may occur. But Seven also says if we try to go out of one of these funnels, the graviton forces reach these critical peaks. And then suddenly they reverse and pull us back in. So we'd have to go out and then hit warp just at the precise moment to get out of these funnels. It's not easy to do.

We'd have to get to warp 8.2. so Janeway's like all right well if we have enough power let's give it a shot the sooner the better before we lose more more you know more power that's being drained I also loved all the blocking in this scene by the way I got to say Mike Fahar it was simple but it was elegant people moved with very simple movements but it was uh I was organic and it looked good you know the other important thing that we have to mention here is that seven is utilized these fractal algorithms with Borg sensors, okay? And so that's really why, you know,

why didn't Vailen get out? Why didn't the other 29 vessels close near here? Why haven't they gotten out? Well, none of them have Borg sensors. So I feel like that's a really important script point here on this one. That's true. Moving on. We go to the bridge and seven finds one of these funnels forming.

It is 70,000 meters off the port bow. So Harry says there's a Graviton surge in 34 seconds. That's all the time we've got. Yeah. Jamie says take us in. We go in. Basically, we're heading into this thing. Ready to go to war.

Consoles are banging big flashes, by the way. Big sparks and things. Yeah. The ship gets thrown. We all get thrown down to the ground. And it's pulled us back in. We cut out to space, but we see, we see, our ship is just, tumbling back in. Yeah.

And it's sort of like, this is so telegraphed. It's like telegraphing a punch because you know when you're watching this scene, we're trying to get out and this is the beginning of the episode, it's not going to work. Okay. So it's almost like this scene isn't even needed. Like we know you can't get out. So anyway, we have to try. We have to try. Storywise, you got to try. Yes, yes. We do hear from on the bridge, we hear Torres call in Bologna calls and says the warp court is offline. Offline. And we cut to a shot. It's like a low angle pushing in on the warp core and you see her up in the balcony. Did you like that?

Or it pulls back from the warp core. Did you like that? You did like it. Oh, cool. Yeah, great shot to go out on the act. We come back. We're in the briefing room. It's almost dark in here.

It's almost like powers out. I loved shooting scenes in these kind of darker environments. I do remember. Because we never do. No, we never do. Yes. I think I remember in this scene. it was really dark and you know Robert used to put his lines on the table and on his pad and

stuff and I think I remember in the scene he'd put his line in it but it was so dark he couldn't see it we had to learn it he was like I got to go to my trailer and learn my lines now too dark too dark to read it yeah he used to tape him onto the pad or whatever and he couldn't do it he's he's like he's asking props for a sims beacon couldn't chacote actually hold a Sims beacon during this and kind of glance it across my pad where my lines are taped. That would have been hilarious.

I like this shot though because Janeway's walking around. She makes a full circle around the table basically. She hands off. She carries, the shot is panning with her walk, but it pans by everyone who is talking. So Paris

is line, Torres, Chacote. Yeah. Nelix. It just goes, it timed out beautifully and it was it was very well done so harry's not is harry in the scene i don't think he's in it i know sorry there's plenty of scenes i'm not in there's plenty of scenes a bunch of us aren't in don't cry i'm not gonna cry you're probably in the captain's chair right now yeah but it's don't you find it odd usually in these type of meetings of informational stuff harry's always in one of chairs especially if you've got you know neelix is there too it's like

you got to have harry there what's going on what is neelis Alex doing. Yeah. I'm just saying, you know, typically, Harry should be there. It's weird. All right. Neelix does offer to go out.

He's there. He's offering to go out on his own and try to salvage something. Oh, from some of the other wrecks, right? There are like ships, yes. I did like the space shop at the space. Oh,

one last thing. Yes. At the very end, the last couple lines, Paris says, well, the vultures are circling. And Janeway says,

vultures eat the dead, Mr. Paris. We're not. Dead yet. I was like, why didn't we do the Monty Python version? I'm not dead yet. Why didn't she?

It's just a flesh wound. What didn't she do? I'm still alive. We're not dead yet. We're not dead yet. Anyway, she literally said it, but all I heard was Monty Python. I love it. Oh, my gosh.

We go out to space. We see our ship in low power mode in space, which has to be the CGI ship, but it was very cool. It did look cool. Very, very cool. Yeah. We go, oh, back to the bridge next. And we come out of the set, like the ceiling, dropping down in the front of the bridge. And didn't he do that same move in the sick bay, like two episodes back?

Possibly. But again, it's still a cool move regardless. I was like, whoa. It was cool. But I was like, wait a minute. Mike's repeating himself now because he blew me away in sick bay when he did that. But now I'm like, hey, he just did it. But it's a different set, though.

He's allowed to do the same move on a different set. Come on. It was cool. It was cool. We liked it. We come down. out of the ceiling, cool shot. And Tuvok says the vessel is in range.

And it's on fire. It looks like it's, or leaking gas or something. It looks like the VFX from, was it last week or the week before, that cool ship that was leaking all the up. Oh, right. Yeah. It looked like the same effects. It looked like plasma was leaking from the ship.

Definitely. Yeah. But Harry says, well, it looks like somebody got there before we did. Tuvok says there's no life science. Janeway says scan for iron trails and whoever did this probably has our Deuterium. So there's really nothing left worth salvaging on that thing. But seven comes up with little ideas. She says, yeah, of course.

Not everything of value has been taken. The warp core has been removed. But the casing that protected it is intact. It's composed of triscium, triscium. Triscium. What is tricecium? I've never even heard of triceasium before this. Never set that word on our show before.

That's the first time. And not only have we never said it, but it's a power source. We could use that as a power source. We just convert it to triscium, tricycerium. I was like, I wrote down. I said, I don't buy it. I wrote down how. I don't buy it.

We're going to, yeah, use this tricecium made up metal and it's going to run our ship. Okay. Well, if you use a McGiver type of thing technique, yes, it'll work. You have to think like McGiver. And Janeway's like, okay, you know, every little bit helps. Beaming it on over, smarty, smarty pants, seven. We come down a hall next with a wristbands on. Oh, the Sims Beacons now.

Sims beacons, yeah. Seven tours are coming down and they come into the cargo bay, I think, where they have beamed the trisium casing, the work core casing. It looks like kind of salvaged, you know, broken kind of metal, this cylindrical tube. thing um but when they shine their light into it or as they're looking on it this creepy like rodent creature sort of pops in it's inside of it and then it runs out and and they they chase it they say stay where you are yeah and they look up shining their lights up on a ladder he's climbing this is jonathan del arco this is phantomay phantomet to me phantom

I don't know how you're going to say it. Phantome. Okay. Yes. This will become Fantome. Yes. But it looks like a rodent. The other thing I couldn't tell is I thought his costume was just greasy and dirty.

But that's actually like it was a weird one because I was like maybe it should have been skin. Like maybe they shouldn't have had it. I thought that was. Oh, no. You're right. Okay. It looks like a jumpsuit. Yes.

Almost like a wet suit. Yes. That looked the same color as his thing. Same pattern is the skin. So I was like, that's weird. So you think that it should have just been skin instead of that. No costume. No costume. So a completely devoid of clothing, Jonathan Del Arcoe, basically.

Okay. I feel like it should have been. Yeah, because they could have to talk about them like rats, you know, like their mice. Like they're vermin. Like they're vermin. Hey, Garrett, have you been traveling this summer? Oh my gosh. So much already.

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Mobile for details. I love the sick-based shot when a Phantomey, who will learn Jonathan Duller was eating out of a bowl in the foreground, super low angle, great shot. His whole physical performance was great. I didn't know it was Jonathan. I know it was blowing my mind still. Yeah. That's Jonathan. It was great. He's down in the foreground. They're trying to talk to him, but the doctor says he won't let me get close enough to treat him. The doctor even says, I don't think he has any verbal skills. He's not communicating. Harry walks in and says,

So you think my ship looks like a spoon, huh? That's what I should have said. But we end it with. They're all very sympathetic with this alien. They want to help him and take care of him. He's very sympathetic. They'll look for other members of his species. In the meantime, seven offers to give him.

some of her supplements, her nutritional supplements from her allotment. Yeah, very gracious of her heart. She does. She's starting to have some empathy, you know. I like it. I'm feeling some empathy. Yeah. We go to the briefing room next.

It's just Tuvac and Kim here. Yeah. Right. So it's just an odd thing. So the whole thing of, you know, me not seeing Harry in the earlier briefing room scene, I wasn't so upset once I saw this scene because I realized, oh, So Huvac and Kim are working hard on finding the Deuterium nabbers, kidnappers. So that's why he wasn't in that other scene.

Okay. And we did. We found the Deuterium. Kim says it's someone we've already met. Now we're on the bridge now next. And it's Phelan, General Vailin. On the view screen. Yes.

The evil, the super. I made a note here. He basically, he just is so on the nose bad guy. I wish he hadn't been quite so on the nose. I didn't think he was that on the nose. I thought he was very helpful in the beginning. And I thought he was kind of, okay. I felt like he was untrustworthy from the very beginning.

I wish he had lightened it up a little and been a little more. I think he did lighten it up. Wow. That's so crazy. Wow. Okay. It's like when Janeway says, well, apparently you killed the crew of another ship and took it from them. So we want it back.

And his answer was, that's not the way things were. Okay. And it was like so oozing with the bad guy, you know, mustache twirling. Okay, fine, fine. I was like, calm down. But when she first says, like, we're not here to trade, we're here to take back what belongs to us. And he's like, I don't know what you mean. I mean, to me, it just felt like he was playing it at the tone that it should be played.

But you're right. And there are certain lines that were a little creepy that he's like, what do you, oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. In this scene, basically, she's starting to experience the reality. of the void and the rules around here, people stealing and, you know, stealing from the Steelers and, you know,

everybody's, everybody's like pirates here. And I felt like she was being tempted into this dark side. This is a scene where she knows she's being tempted. She was. But she resists the temptation. Because she could have beamed off, she could have transported everything off of his ship,

which means a whole bunch of other things that didn't even belong to us. But when she found out that there weren't ours, she said no. She said, no, we'll just take what we, you know, what our property. The rest of it. So she still has ethics. She still has a moral compass at this point. She does, but you can see her questioning it. And that's what leads to this next scene, which I love this next scene. And her ready room. Yeah, in the ready room. It starts with a cinematic sort of pan across the ready room and lands on her in a silhouette, profile silhouette, looking out towards the stars, dark, And then Tuvok and Chakotay come in.

And they basically have, they're coming in with an inventory, but they want to talk to her about, you know, how they're going to survive and what their tactics are going to be. You know, they're both suggesting that maybe we should, you know, play by the rules of this place and kind of, you know, maybe we can behave a little differently than we would if we were back in Federation space or even in the Delta Quadrant. Janeway does say, I was hoping to find a loophole that would allow us to take actions we wouldn't ordinarily take. And Chiquotay says, any luck. He almost did. Any luck get Tuvok. Almost did the full. But he did have half the classic, half the Chacotei classic with any look.

And he looked at duvok. You're doing it very well as well. I'm very impressed with your impersonation. I didn't even realize that. He didn't said that. I was so busy writing notes. And he did say that. And you were waiting for Tuvac at the end. I was, I was. But Janeway ultimately says, look, I think the solution is to team up with people here and to be generous and to offer them food and medical supplies, defend them if they're attacked, share with each other. Chikote's like, well, we don't even have enough food for ourselves.

How can we share with people? But Janeway's answer is, look, maybe we'll only survive two days instead of seven, but we're going to do the right thing instead of 40. it. And maybe if we combine our resources and we work together, that we can figure out a way a real solution, you know, to solve this problem. So it's all about collaboration, not competition. Collaboration is key. Yeah. Great Janeway kind of seen bringing Starfleet values to the void. I love the whole thing. We've got a captain's log here. As Janeway says, for the past several days, we've been making every effort to recruit members into an alliance.

but it hasn't been easy. Not easy at all. We see the first group she's trying to recruit. This is our red-suited team with Garron, their leader there. Garan. Garin, yeah. You know what I see when I see G-A-R-O-N? I see Georgia Ron.

Like the G-A-R-R-G-R-G-R-G-R-G-R-G-R-G. He's in the house right now. George-R-R-on. Okay. But she's, Janeway, is explaining to Garen that maybe, you know, when a new ship arrives that instead of attacking it, bring them in. Every new ship that comes in. Help defend them. Help defend them. And bring them into this alliance. And then Garen says at one point, he's like, well, how many, how many, uh, oh, how many

ships do you have in this alliance? And Janeway says, you'd be the first. Yes, that's it. She hasn't sold anyone on this. You'd be the first. I love that moment. And then Neelix jumps in. Well, technically, captain, that's not correct. I, I, I, I, I, I, join this six years ago. I offered my services. So he tries to like, you know, smooth. Sweeten the pot a little bit for Garin. Yes. He tried. But I love his, do you see his response line? He says, it's a noble idea, captain, but good intentions are like Deuterium reserves. They tend to get lost in the void. I love that line there. Yeah. But she says, you know, just consider it. She says, consider it. And he says, yeah, I'll think about it. Right. Yeah. Oh, and she does give him food

and medical supplies at the end of the scene, yeah, which is very nice of her. For nothing in return. For nothing. He says, what do you expect in return? She goes, nothing.

Just compliments. Of the alliance. Which is a smart move because does she really expect? I think she expects him to join this alliance. But, you know, there's no, there's no quid pro quo, no this for that necessarily.

Yeah. But it's sort of implied, like. Right. But there's nothing like sweetening the pot with actual food and medical supplies. I mean, that's just, here, take this. And now he knows we're not playing. We're serious about this.

Okay, we go to the quarter next. Seven and Janeway are walking and talking. And, you know, Seven is very skeptical about this whole plan to form an alliance. And she says, you know, somebody took my phase compensator. You know, I just don't think we can trust these people, basically. They end up talking and Janeway is sticking to her guns. They end up stopping in the walk and talk and having a very close talky. sort of seen, which I felt like we had gotten away from our close talking, but we're back

out of this. I guess it's back in. Yeah. It's a little bit more close talking. Janeway and seven were a little bit close. Janeway in the end, she basically says, well, I'm really sorry that I gave away your phase compensator. Oh, that's right.

She says she says that she had given it. The Janeway says she had given it to the Nigerians. Yeah, because they needed to repair their sensor array. So she says, I'm sorry I gave it away. And she says this as she's walking away, she sort of tosses it over her shoulder. And I made a note, she sounded like Catherine Hepburn here. Kate did.

She was like, I'm sorry, I gave away your favorite fade compensator. And she walked away. It's just like, wow. I'm sorry I gave away your favorite phase compensator. She had a little bit of drama. Straight from black and white film right now. Yeah, she walked away. I love it.

It was very funny, the delivery and the way she was walking and sort of talking over her shoulder. She walked away. We go into Sick Bay. There's opera music playing. It is Rigoletto or something. I don't know what it is. We see Fantome.

He's like feeling his chest. He's feeling the music in his chest. This is where I still didn't know it was Jonathan Del Arco. So I was like, oh, cool behavior to really kind of express what's going on for this character. Seven is checking on him. you know, how's he doing much better? The doctor finally shares that he's named him Fantome, because he's such a music lover.

Is that kind of like Fantome of the opera kind of? Yes. Is that where they're going with that? Oh, he even says after the Phantom of the Opera, a tormented character who was soothed by music. Yeah. Right? Okay.

Fantome, Phantom of the Opera. That's what it's from. Or did they say Fantom? I don't even know how they said that. Fantom. his name. I forgot. But the doctor clearly thinks that Fantome is a really interesting individual. They're connecting. And the doctor says, I wish I could communicate with him. But then Seven says, well, he may not be able to speak, but he can hear. And then she holds up some items and puts a, you know,

has the computer make a tone. Like she holds up a tricorder and makes a tone. And then holds up a bowl and makes a tone. And then she just makes the tone. And Fantomei, whatever's name is, comes and picks up the one that matches the tone. Yeah. And so the doctor was like, oh, he understands. That tone means that. I thought that, you know, I could hear the tone. Yes. You know, when she started playing this game, it felt like such a simple game. I was like, oh, there's two items. There's a high tone and there's a low tone. This is going to get more complex, I hope. Right. It's pretty fundamental. I hope. Yes.

Yes. But at least you see where they're, where the foundation of what they're going to do. So it was pretty clear. Yeah. We go to the mess hall. Neelix is spreading another tablecloth. Again, this helper is there.

I don't know who this dude is. There's some guy there helping out Neelix in the mess hall. Wouldn't that be crazy if there was this crazy plot amongst the showrunners? They're like, yeah, we got to get rid of McNeil. You know, he's so, he's got two feet and two boats, one foot with the family with all these kids. and then he's working. Let's put this guy that kind of looks like him on camera,

just to see how that compares to contrast to him. I mean, like, what? We've never seen this extra in seven years. He shows up. He's a featured extra. I feel like it's somebody that won a contest or something or like did on a charity or something. It's got to be what it was.

Because that's typically where a yala would be. You know what I'm saying? A featured extra that we know. We know it's Tarek and sometimes he has a line. This guy was just front and center. And again, you're right. He probably won a silent auction, something. Probably something like a charity auction.

I don't know where he's game, bro. But, yeah, Neelix is putting down food in front of them. Yeah. He puts a plate down in front of Paris, and it looks like eyeballs. Didn't it? It looked like eyeballs or something. It was weird looking. But I think that was a light cheese.

I think that's a light cheese. I think it was a lightchie, yeah. Like a fresh lightchie has that gelatinous looking eye. I think it was a light sheet. And I think they put something on it black, like a seed or something else. Oh. So it kind of had a eyeball look. Weird look.

Yeah. But anyway, he puts down Fetron Rosoto in front of Tom and he puts down Oli and Guava in front of Khoras. Yeah. And then suddenly Tuvok calls and says senior officers to their stations, Harris leaves. I felt like this scene was pointless. I did not understand. There's no reason for this scene to be in there, correct?

It doesn't further the story. Nope. It's not even a beast. Well, is it a beast storyline? A little bit of... I have no idea why this scene was in there. It's so strange. Like at the end, so he puts down a couple of things.

They don't really eat it. They don't really... Like, is it that he felt jealous of seven was making the first meal? Well, I don't know. Maybe. I don't know. I don't know why the scene was in there. Well, because, okay, you know why? Because in the very beginning, your romantic double date was already interrupted.

So he wanted to reproduce your romantic date time and give you guys the full dinner. And here it is, interrupted again, basically. But you're right. It doesn't need to be in there. It's odd. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah.

It's weird. Anyway, we go to the bridge. because there is two bucks called us to the to the bridge Janeway's saying shields to full Paris is running in

over by you Yeah coming in that door Yeah a funnel just open A vessel pulled in a new vessel And of course Two vessels are approaching that new vessel

And one of them is General Valens And Valens starts firing on the newcomer Now Janeway is ready To do her little move To start this alliance He targets of Avalin's weapons and she hails Vailen, and Vailen's like, hey, look, I'm not fighting you, Captain. Jamie was like, no, no, no, no, you need to stand down now.

Valen's like, okay, this new ship has technology that we can share. Janeway's like, no, no, no, no, no, we're not going to do this. So basically, Janeway draws the line right here in this scene. She's going to protect this ship from being taken or possibly, you know, the entire crew. And let's face it, when people get, when these ships get pillaged, a lot of times the crew crews end up getting killed as well. So that's the end of the crew. So Janeway has drawn a line

and Valen just doesn't understand it. Valen's all about I need this and this is how I survive and I don't care who is in my way. I liked when Janeway hailed the new ship and we see Loquhar or Locair. He immediately goes, I surrender. And Jim was like, no, no, no.

We're here to help you. I love these guys. They're like the overseers. or whatever there, Paul? Yes, the watchers. Love the watchers. They're so good. He went to surrender.

Jamie, they're like, no, no, no. We're here to help you. Can you target that smaller warship? He said, we're not equipped to fight, so Janeway fires some torpedoes, which we don't have. Again,

fire some torpedoes. And they don't really work because he must have upgraded his shield since the last time we were fighting him, so right where Pitos don't work. Yeah. We're having problems now with this guy.

We got whole breaches. Harry says on deck five and six. Then we cut to engineering and Torres is climbing under the rail into the middle of the warp core. And then she goes over to a panel on the railing side and types from the wrong side, like the warp course. I was like, why did she climb inside of the warp core just to work on a panel she could have walked over to?

strange that was a weird strange it felt dramatic to me yeah but she does deliver it was unnecessary and very bizarre but she says we're losing containment at this rate will be dead in the water in less than three minutes and our shields are down to 15% at this point um so Tuvac says we should retreat Jamie was like no no we can't do this and you say you might want to reconsider there's another ship approaching so now we think yeah we think this we're going I'm fighting against three. Yeah. But guess what?

It's Garin. It's Emmanuel Lewis. Webster himself, all grown up coming to save us. We're so happy. Yeah. Basically, fires on the two vessels on valent shields are down. The other ship is leading plasma. They both retreat.

Yep. Garin calls up. But before Garin is on the view screen, Janeway says, get a weapons lock on him because she feels like he'd been fooled before. Yes. She doesn't get fooled again. And Garan calls her out right when he pops on screen. He's like, why are you targeting me?

He's like, well, I don't know your intention. He's like, I just made them clear, right? I just shot, I just defended you. Those guys that were, yeah, they were attacking you guys. So, yeah, so she was like, okay, welcome to the alliance. I love this act out because she kind of walks forward. The camera pushes in over Paris. And it's a really, and the music here shifted.

I really like. Yes, it did. It felt like Spielberg-y kind of music. Like, very positive. It was cool. Yes. Next thing we see is in space. We see Voyager with five other ships hanging out nearby.

And the captain's log says since Garen in the survey ship became our charter members, finding new allies has gotten easier. The latest prospect is Commander Bosol or Basal, whose ship technology could help us escape. So now we see in the mess hall, Janeway, uh, Her idea is working. There's aliens everywhere, mingling, getting along. It looks like her new alliance that she's created is coming together. Yep.

And she's brought Bozzel, Commander Bozzel with her and offering him some dinner. And he's shocked about fresh vegetables. She's like, what? How did you? Who did you raid? You know, so his whole mindset is like raiding, raiding, raiding. How did you get these fresh vegetables? Who did you raid these from?

And she says, no, no, no, they're replicators. And guess what? One of the crews that joined us, they had technology that has tripled our replicator efficiency. So we've already done amazing things. And Neelix is proud. He says he can feed up to 500 people a day using half the power that it took us a few days ago. And now they sit down to have a nice meal. We have a walk and talk is next?

Yeah, it's a short walk and talk. Tuvok is leaving the mess hall, runs into the doctor. and he asks how the patient is. Right. And Phantome is right there with him. Well, kind of hiding behind a doctor. In a way. They both have a pad.

The doctor has a pad. Fantomi has a pad. And the doctor says, well, he's not my patient anymore. It's taken me a long time just to coax him out of sickbay, but he's doing fine. And the doctor plays a couple of notes on the pad. and then Phantomei plays some notes back. It's like they're talking to each other with these little, like, musical tones, right?

Musical tones, yes. And I was thinking at this point, they start talking back and forth, and they walk into the mess hall. Yeah. And the doctor, as they're talking with the musical tones, the doctor laughs like he made it, like Fantoma made a joke or something.

And I was like, first of all, how do you make a joke with musical tones? I don't even know how that would work. Also, the doctor says, he says, it began with a few simple words, but now we're capable of rudimentary conversation. So as far as I know, the definition of rudimentary is basic, basic, right? So basic conversation, I guess you can make a joke from that. Why did the chicken cross the road joke?

A very rudimentary joke must be a very simple, yes, but the doctor does laugh. At that point, I was thinking, why don't we use our universal translator? Like, if we've created a language, if we wrote it in there, and then it feels like you could use the universal translator and everyone, so now he could talk to everyone,

not just the doctor who seems to understand. Yes. Yeah, I know. R rerout it through the university translator. Yeah. Okay. But they come into the mess hall, and then our new friend,

Bossell, or Bostole, yes. Sees Phantome and is like, gross. What is that parasite doing aboard your ship? Yeah, that's right. He didn't call him vermin. He calls him a parasite is what he says. Yes. Yes. Well, he does. Yeah, because Janeway says,

I beg your pardon. He says they are vermin. Excuse me. Yes. Yes. Afterwards. Yes. So, um, we clearly see that Bosol or Bosol, um, thinks they behave like rats. They spread disease. They hide in conduits. Steal people's food.

Yeah. And, um, the doctor is very defensive. He says, you know, He doesn't have any disease. He's very healthy, unlike a lot of other people in this void. And he hasn't stolen anything. Yeah. Yeah. But Bosel basically says, I would exterminate all of them.

And I suggest you do the same. Yeah, he says, if my sensors could detect where they are on my ship, I would exterminate them. Yeah. It's just pretty hardcore. You do see the reaction on both Janeway and the doctor's face that this is ridiculous, right? So they're not happy. Yeah. Yeah, she says, you know what, if you don't like these guys, as long as they follow our rules, we could bring them on Voyager.

And Bo Sal is like, well, if you could find them. And she says, well, now that we've got Phantome's physiology, we can get a transport-a-lock, we'll beam them off your ship. If you don't want them over there, we'll be him over here. Yeah. And he agrees. So, yeah. And he joins the alliance at this point. So he's one of the newest members of the Void Alliance.

to get out. All right, where are we? We go into space for a moment. We see six ships, so we see Bossal's ship has joined. So now we're in engineering, and Torres and Garen are trying out this new emitter relay. Janeway walks in, she says, how's it going? And Torres begins to answer, oh, pretty well, pretty well, but we just need to, and suddenly, it pops, it blows up. Yeah. So I thought the timing that was very funny.

It was. Oops. Very dry, funny. So Garum basically says that we have to establish this huge shield bubble around all the ships, but we have no way to compensate for the graviton stress. So there's no, there's no, that's the problem. That's the, that's the issue. They have to be able to.

And Jamie's like, well, what about a Polaron modulator? Could we do that? And Torres says nobody in our alliance has one. We'd have to build it. Well, yeah, she says, we've been trying. to build it but so far um nothing so jamie's like okay maybe we can trade for one we go into astrometrics next and my favorite aliens the hierarchy are there yeah ease dropping um and they're listening and they hear they're they're ease dropping in on this conversation we just saw

in engineering right the hierarchy hears it because she janeway says maybe we could trade for one or find a new ally who has one. So when it cuts to astrometrics, we basically see the aliens you love are eavesdropping. Yes, on the tail end of Janeway sentence. Yes, exactly. They're watching that.

And then Tuvaq comes in and says, hey, what are you doing? You're not authorized to be in here. And he explains, well, we're making a very valuable contribution. We devise this new surveillance system. basically a spy system. Yeah.

And it even bypassed two of our security measures. So these guys are very smart. And they were spies. I mean, that's kind of how we met them before. They were like watchers or observers. So they brought some of their technology onto Voyager.

Yeah. It is valuable. That is a contribution because Loquhar says we can observe activity on any ship in the void without being detected. I mean, this is at the ultimate, like in business, if you were able to jump into the boardrooms of all the companies that you

are basically in business are competing against that would be that would give you an advantage for sure and so he talks about how two bucks says why are you watching these guys uh because they're in our alliance yeah uh you shouldn't be spying on them and loquhar says well they shouldn't be hiding their ale so it's kind of a comedic out it is comedic where he sees they've got you know some beer and uh they haven't been sharing it with everybody anyway we We go, one of my favorite scenes is this next one. We go in a sick bay and there's more of these void aliens. There's more of Jonathan Delacos.

Yes. And they are playing music. Like they're, it's a great shot around the, the biobad, the surgical bed. Are they on the clamshell? Are they on the clamshell bed? They're sitting on it and kind of playing all these notes. And it's just really beautiful. Yeah.

And it ends up being this almost like a musical piece. Yeah, like a concert. And Janeway comes in and she's just mesmerized and listens to it. And when they finish, she applauds. He starts applauding. And my first thought was, do they even understand applause? Yeah. He's about to attack.

As she does that, they all like scatter. They're like, oh, my God, because they hear this clapping sound. They don't know what it is. Yeah. But Janeway thinks it's beautiful and asked if they made it, you know, if they composed it. And the doctor said, well, they did, but it's not really a composition. It's a conversation. Yeah.

Janeway says, well, maybe this kind of communication suggests they have a language. And the doctor says it could be telepathic. We don't know. Right. But they're comfortable using musical notes to talk to each other. That's for sure. Janeway does ask if they happen to be native to the void, these Jonathan Delarko aliens. And Bartow says that they told him that they were born there.

So, yes, this is where they're from. And they love this moment. It's one of my favorite scenes because it's a real like exploration moment of like Janeway really the wonder and awe of seeing a new species that's just beautiful in some ways. And it's just a reminder of what an amazing kind of discovery adventure that we're on and a reminder that she's a science-based captain as well. Yes, she is. Yes. But Torres calls in a captain, need you in engineering. Basically, Tora says, we've got this fully compatible polar-on modulator.

And he says, where'd you get it? Bosal says the Kinjal frigate. And Janeway's like, oh, great. They want to join the alliance. And Bosal says, no, they're not interested. Janeway's like, wait a minute. How'd you get this then? He said, I traded.

What'd you give them? She asked, no, I don't want to answer. I don't answer to you. She says, wait, did you steal it? and he doesn't really answer. She says, we're returning it. They have no more use for it. They don't need it.

Janeway's like, you don't know that? He's like, yeah, I do. That's what she figures it out. She's like, you killed them. That is a violation. You're out. You know, we're not going to use this. We'll be, yes, we would be accessories to murder if we end up using this technology.

So she basically boots Bolzell and his. Polaron modulator, off the ship and says, see ya. You're done. Get out of here. You're not in our alliance anymore. Yeah. It's a very strong act out. She is crystal clear about our morals. We go out on the act there. Come back. We have a space shot. We're down to three ships now. We're up to six. Right. And we're down to three. Yeah, the Jaliniens and the Kralor left with Basal. So the guys that were drinking the beer, they're gone. So we didn't need them anyway, right? Didn't need them. Now, all they had was beer. This is a nice. scene with Chokote and Janeway, J.C. Forever. It's a walk and talk. He won't give up on her,

basically. That's what the scene is about. You know, she's questioning, did I make a mistake? And Chocote is just not giving up on her because it's J.C. forever. J.C. Forever. Okay. Yes. But Janeway says, you know, okay, I guess everyone's pulling together to make up for my my mistake. And Chikote says, well, they have to. That's in the Federation Charter. So he's got her back. He's trying to make her feel better for kicking this guy out. Yeah. Now we're in astrometrics. And Tuvac is basically there with Loquhar. Loquhar is the one who recorded a tactical conversation that took place between Bozell and Valen, I think, is who he's talking to. Yeah. So you see Valen talking saying, don't underestimate.

mate Janeway. I've been in a battle with her twice. Bosel says, well, then you know her tactics. I have two other ships. We can take voyagers, food, and weapons if we work together. So Bozzel is trying to form his own alliance to, you know, combat against Janeway. Janeway. She booted him. She realizes, like, we got to get out of here. You know, we can't afford another battle with these guys.

Right. Helbalana, we don't have time to test that modulator. We've got to do it now. Right, because they're going to attack. Within the next 48 hours, going to make their attack. Yeah. So there's not enough time for Bolana to run field tests on this modulator that she has to put

together, that she has to create. Next, we go to Sick Bay and Janeway comes in. Our Fantome and his pals are having this very fast conversation. I don't know what they're saying, but I love, we were handheld. Things are getting, you know, dramatic and the energy is going up here. The stakes are getting higher. Janeway comes in, sorry to interrupt your conversation. We've got a situation. Your friends, she tells the doctor, your friends can join us, but they need to be aware

of the dangers. They can leave with us, but they need to be aware of the dangers. Doc translates. He goes, nope, this is their home. They want to stay. Janway says, well, where should we transport them? And he says, any ship will do their nomads. He says, they want to help us now. They want to help us now. Exactly. The montage of the work of preparing to get out of here with the shield bubble and everything, right? So that's the prep. They're going through all the last second preparations. So we're now on the bridge.

And Kim reports that there's a funnel forming in grid four. There's a graviton surge in 98 seconds. Jainway says, okay, let the other ships know. Take us in, Tommy. Tommy says, aye, captain. And now I captain. I captain. And then Tuvok reports that Bolzo and his fleet are approaching.

They're charging weapons. Jamie says to engineering, she wants into the status. Torres says, look, I need two more minutes. Janeway says, you've got one. That reminded me of the original series, wherever, every time Kirk asked Scotty for an estimate, and Scotty would give an estimate, Kirk would always cut it in half. You've got this much time. So, yeah.

All right, so the surge is about to happen in 50 seconds. Janeway says, to the alliance ships, begin firing at your designated targets. And at that point, we do see some of the firing happening. Tuvok does say that we have penetrated shields on both of the vessels. and then that's when Janeway says to the doctor initiate. So the transport happens of Jonathan DeLarco and company. Yes, we go to the transporter room and there's all Jonathan Delarko and his pals, devoid aliens on the transporter pad.

And Doc says, okay, captain acknowledged. And he says, goodbye and good luck, energize. And they beam away. They beam into the engine room. Yes, seven says they're in the engine rooms of the other. ships. Yeah. That's where we sent them. Yeah. Very smart. We're back on the bridge. Kim said, Harry says, we've got 30 seconds, captain. Janeway says we need that modulator to Torres. Torres says, we need a few more seconds. Getting very dramatic here. We have a cool space shot of

Voyager being attacked as it heads through the funnel or toward the funnel. Yeah. And I loved in that space shot. You see the attacking ships start to blink. It's like there's something's going on. Yeah. You know that those void aliens are in the engine room and they're taking, you know, shutting down the engines or whatever they're doing. Yep. On the bridge, Kim says,

Harry says, we're receiving a hail from Valen ship audio only. Jamie says let's hear it. And all of a sudden, you don't hear Valen. It's just the musical tones. Exactly. Yes. Of the, of Fantomi, clearly. And Janeway turns and Janeway says, what is he saying?

doctor. And the doctor says, well, mission accomplished. Fantomi shut down power on valent ship. And of course, that's what saves the day. Both the attacking ships are disabled by Phantomi and Tomi's brethren. So yes, it's a good day for Voyager and the alliance. There is a shot when we, when in the transporter room, and doctor says mission accomplished and we go to the bridge and Tuvuk says confirmed, Bostel's ship has lost all power as well. And then the camera off Tuvok pans over to Paris in a really tight close up. Yeah. And Paris says, who says gremlins in the engine are a myth?

Right. Anyway, I remember this shot. Chrissy She's head almost exploded. Why? Because it was such a focus shift to go from Tuvok. I remember it's a hard shot. That one moment, it flies by so quickly. But I remember the focus shift was like massive from way in the back of the bridge to way in

way tight on you and it's a blind shift like it's on the pan he just has to hope that he lands the right focal length and when i saw that i was like i got that shot we must have done it like 15 times oh rest in peace to chris yeah rest in peace to chris issue but i you're you are right and i just remember there were times chris when you put him under that type of duress where it's very difficult to make that focus shift he would make it known like he would see you know he would speak up he would like guys this is really you know he would basically say like this is not easy this is not easy okay guys you know i mean he would get frustrated oh yeah because he's he was very good at what he did very very good but when you put him under that type of duress where you've got

that was a tough shot it's so hard i totally remember that yes i was like oh poor Chris yeah but But when you talk about crew members... Was he on the camera with Doug? Doug was the operator on him? I think it was Doug. Yes, Doug Knapp was operating, right? And then focus... I think both of them.

It might have been Doug too. But he would focus pull for, for... Even if Marvin was on the camera, right? Just he would focus pull for whoever. But again, he was probably the only crew member who ever would stop and speak out and say something. You know, typically everyone's sort of like, oh, I know my place. I'm not going to make waves.

But when something was difficult and... people were asking a lot of Chris, Chris would be vocal. And no one would, he wouldn't be disciplined for it because, you know, he was a good worker. It wasn't like he was a slacker.

He was delivered. He wanted to deliver quality. He wanted to be perfect, right? So being a perfectionist of what he does, sometimes he would get frustrated. He was like, gosh, darn it. You know, guys, you know, got to help me out a little bit on this.

So, yeah, Chris. Chris. Yeah. Anyway, in that scene, it's very tense. That's why there was that. hard shot with a right very tense

because we've got it we're going to head through this funnel yeah voyager plus the three other ships and this big big bubble that we're all in yeah

the ships are in formation uh we're 40,000 meters to normal space 20 20% 10% 2 bucks says Jamie says do it and they drop the shield and all three go to warp

and we see them fly out towards the stars very cool shot yeah we escaped we escaped We go to the transporter room. Galen and Loquhar are there. Oh, Galen.

Galen is Loquhar's... Wait, who is Galen? Goran. Fuck. Oh, my gosh. There is no Galen in the cast list. There is no Galen. This is the wrong...

Yeah, this script has the wrong... It's Garin. It's got to be Garin. It has to be Garin. Because let's figure this out. It's the red... The red uniform aliens, right? Right? That's Garin.

Loquar is the big... Apopotamus guy, right? And who else joined us? Phelan was the bad guy. Right. So he's not with that group. No, and then there was the guy that killed people and he got kicked out, right? So, but there's another ship with us.

Isn't it Voyager and three other ships to get out of here? Or was it just Voyager and two other ships? I don't remember. Let's just not even call him by the character. Let's just say, yeah. Let's just say it's, I think it was Garron. Yeah, I think it is too. Yeah.

But we're in the transport. quarter room. Janeway basically congratulates everyone and saying it was a privilege to have you as allies. Yeah. Garen's like, well, I never believe we did escape. Loquhar. He's like, well, then why did you join? And then Garen says, I keep on and say Gailen. And then Garen says, Captain Janeway is very persuasive. And the food was good. That's a, that's a big seller right there. The food. Yes. But we leave good friends. We've made some good friends. Janeway stuck to her guns. They're all beamed away.

Janeway, they have the last couple of words there. Yes. They are very close, by the way, when they have these last words. They are. It's almost like being part of the Federation.

Mm-hmm. There's a moment there. There was a moment. Anyway, after their very close JC moment, they walk away. I put her heart, hard because it's sweet.

What is your lesson? I was going to say it to you. But no, what is your lesson is. What is your lesson? my lesson is collaboration always trumps competition that's exactly what i said working together is more effective than competing yeah yeah working together is the lesson here yeah for sure agreed um thousand percent what is your rating i'll ask you that rating i enjoyed this episode

i liked the jonathan del arco void aliens i thought they were super cool some of my favorite i love the hippo aliens, those guys. So all in all, I give it an 8.0. I give this a pretty good rating. I know. Wow. I'm not going to go that high. I'm going to go 7.7, but still good.

Still good. Yeah. This was a good one. I agree. And what's the captains and admirals rating? The captains and admirals average rating for the void is 8.0. Oh, you nailed it. That's the first time ever.

Okay. That is the first time ever. I'm going to say you nailed it and you nailed Mike Veybar. I want you to go when you're in Salt Lake, you pick up a lottery ticket. Okay. Pick up five of them. Don't just get one five. I'm feeling good today.

I'm feeling good today. I'm feeling good today. 8.0. Wow. Average. That's pretty cool. Okay. That's very cool.

Super, super duper cool. Okay. So what is next week's episode? Oh, next week's episode is part one of a two-parter, workforce part one. That's right. and I forgot that was coming up. Okay. It's coming up.

Excellent. Yeah, I'm pretty sure you and I both know that one of those was directed by. Yes. Roxanne. Roxanne. Yeah. So we don't have to guess that name since we know that. But yes, Workforce Part 1.

All right, everyone, thank you for tuning in to Robbie and I's recap and discussion of the void. Join us next week when we will be recapping Workforce Part 1. All of our Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material. You know,