The Delta Flyers - Thirty Days

Episode Date: April 25, 2022

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 Thirty Days. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.Thirty Days:Voyager discovers a massive ocean floating in space, populated by an alien species in trouble, and Tom Paris is accused of breaking with protocol.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 BragaAdditionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co-Executive Producers: Stephanie Baker, Philipp Havrilla, Kelton Rochelle, Liz Scott, Eve England, Sab Ewell, Sarah A Gubbins, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Chris Knapp, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Courtney Lucas, Matthew Gravens, Elaine Ferguson, Brian Barrow, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Heidi Mclellan, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, John Espinosa, James Zugg, Deike Hoffmann, Mike Gu, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Vikki Williams, Kelly Brown, Lee Lisle, Mary Beth Lowe, William McEvoy, Sarah Thompson, Mike Devlin, Samantha Hunter, Holly Smith, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Ashley Stokey, Amber Eason, Mary Burch, Nicholaus Russell, Dominique Weidle, Lisa Robinson, Joseph Michael Kuhlmann, Darryl Cheng, Alex Mednis, AJ Freeburg, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Barbara S., Tim Beach, Ariana, Meg Johnson, Victor Ling, Marcus Vanderzonbrouwer, Nathan Walker, Shambhavi Kadam, James H. Morrow, Christopher Arzeberger, Megan Chowning, Tae Phoenix, Nicole Anne Toma, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Daniel O’Brien, Bronwen Duffield, Brandon May, Jeremy Mcgraw, & Jason BonnettAnd our Producers:Jim Guckin, James Amey, Katherine Hendrick, Eleanor Lamb, Richard Banaski, Ann Harding, Ann Marie Segal, Charity Ponton, Chloe E, Kathleen Baxter, Craig Sweaton, Nathanial Moon, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Mike Schaible, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Matthew Cutler, Maxine Soloway, Joshua L Phillips, Barbara Beck, Aithne Loeblich, Caryn Mellom, Dat Cao, Cody Crockett, Scott Lakes, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Tara Polen, Jenna Appleton, Jason Potvin, Cindy Ring, Andrei Dunca, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, Amy Tudor, Jamason Isenburg, Mark G Hamilton, Rob Johnson, Kevin Selman, Maria Rosell, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Justin Weir, Normandy Madden, Mike Chow, Michael "Klink" Klinckhardt, Rachel Shapiro, Eric Kau, Megan Moore, Melissa A. Nathan, Captain Jak Greymoon, David Wei Liu, David J Manske, Roxane Ray, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, E.G. Galano, Cindy Holland, Craig M. Nakashian, Julie McCain, Will Forg, Max Wilson, Estelle Keller, & Carmen Puente-GarzaThank 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

Hey guys. Welcome to the Delta Flyers. I'm your host, Garrett Wong. My co-host is Robert Duncan McNeil. We are a podcast which talks about Voyager episodes from beginning to the very end. And guess what? We're in season five right now. And yes, we are. We have made some changes. We're making some changes to. Oh, yeah, we have. We have. We have made making some changes to our format. What I love about this podcast here is the community that it's built. And, you know, our Patreon patrons are really involved in the podcast and what we do. And we got some feedback from the Patreon patrons. We had a big survey, multi, multi layer survey that got a lot of feedback. And I'm so grateful for all the positive feedback. We got a lot of a lot of love from.

the fans but also some great suggestions so like one thing uh we're going to be doing is we used to do in some of our patreon bonus material we would do doovers like what what would we do over again if if we had a chance um we're going to be changing that because of a suggestion from the patron patrons to what scene is missing which i'm excited about because there's always an opportunity in in an episode where oh if there just been a scene between jane way and chic Pote or something like that. So I think that'll be fun for us to make up improvements in episodes. Yeah. And then on my end, typically for the Patreon patrons, I always have

my language lesson. And this evolved. I mean, I know a lot of fans are probably wondering, why is this even included? And part of it is because I speak multiple languages. I love languages. And so I just thought, or at least someone in the beginning did, they did suggest it in the beginning. They said, hey, you should do language lessons. And so this was a fan suggestion to begin with. And now we are going to switch to Star Trek languages. That's a great idea that they were suggesting. We're going to go with Klingon, Vulcan, whatever comes up, you know, it could be anything, but primarily focused on

Klingon. Klingon is the one that's really been written down and kind of like explored very deeply. Yes. Whereas there's a lot of Vulcan words and phrases, Ferengi words and phrases, Romulan words and phrases, that we will be teaching everybody or you will be teaching everybody, these languages. And that's going to be fun. So I love the new ideas. I think that's going to be a lot. Yeah. So a few little tweaks here and there, really. We're excited about that. Now, just to let everyone know, we've had a bit of a break from the last time. recorded. So a lot has happened since then. I have since returned. For my European trip, I went to Italy first for a small convention in Fuji, which was super fun. It was my second time there. And then after that, I flew to France to Bordeaux, France, for my zero gravity flight with the European Space Agency, which I was super nervous about. I was like, oh, I know you were. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't know what was going to transpire. Did you get the motion sickness shot?

I got the shot. You hate needles. I hate needles, yeah. And the thing was, he was injecting it. The doctor was injecting it so slowly. And he says, he says, I'm sorry, but it has to be slow like this. This is the only way it is the most effective. So I'm like, okay, but you can feel it stinging as it's going in.

And I'm going, oh, my God, it's hurting, it's hurting. And then the line behind me to get the shot from the other 40 people was so long. I thought this is going to take forever because literally it took him. It seemed like a minute and a half for him to finally inject all of this. And I thought they're not even going to have everyone injected in time for the flight to take off. And then I came back like, I don't know, five minutes later, the line was gone. So I almost felt like he was like, you did it slow for you. Did it work?

Yeah, it worked. It worked. You were not nauseous at all. Yeah. The main thing is you have to keep your, when you're going through the, the double G portion of it, which means when the plane banks up, your experience double G because you're extremely, you know, pushed down to the press down. And then after the 22 seconds of, like, it does this.

And while it's curving the parabola, there's 22 seconds of zero G, then it's double G again. So the double G portions, you have two, that sort of bookend. the zero G part. So when you're in double G, you have to keep your head straight. If you start looking around at people going, hey, you're having fun. Yeah, you have, that's when you start losing it. You get sick. You have to keep your head totally straight and looking at one point. And it was cool because we did, I got to do, I think, 11 or 12 of these and the rest were reserved for other scientists that maybe wanted to have fun. So I was the first 11. And I started lying down. and then I floated up.

Then I started sitting, then I started standing and floated. Then I floated with a model of the Voyager, a model of the Delta Flyer as well. And these were really kind of just interesting to see me floating with the models of the ship. Then I brought this action figure, so I floated him with me. Then I did one where Harry was floating with the Voyager to sort of reenact that scene.

where Harry falls out of the ship in Deadlock. So I spun him in the air. So he was flying or falling away from the ship kind of a thing. Oh, that's funny. Yeah, so we did a lot of really, really cool, nifty little experiments. That's very cool. Yeah, it was super cool, super cool. And then came back and I'm still on European time right now.

So I get really tired at about 2 p.m., 3 p.m., which is like bedtime over there. Yeah. But super fun, man. And you are done with Resident Alien for this year. I am done with Resident Alien, yeah. So while you were off in Europe doing the space flight, I was directing the last two episodes of Resident Alien. And it was great.

And I actually, I was given a... You brought Alan Tudik? Well, sort of. I brought... Nice. So, okay, everybody, just for those of you listening, Robbie now has a actual model of basically an alien from resident alien. It's a resident alien, baby alien. At the end of the first half of season two, for those that watch Resident Alien, the end of the first half, Harry got it on two to cut an egg, an alien egg, an alien egg. It hatched. And this little baby alien came out of it. And we had the makeup department, prosthetic makeup department, create a animatronic version of this.

We also had a CG version. Nice. We could have an animatronic version where the head swiveled around. So they had to create this cast. So they made a couple copies for me and Chris Sheridan and just a few people on the show. And I think Alan Tutic got one. That's so cool. And they mounted it here.

You can move the arms and everything. these will, I think it's, I don't know, I don't want to break it. But see, for those that are not Patreon patrons, when you sign up for Patreon, you get the video and you could be watching this little baby alien

bounce around in my lap right now. It's so impressive. That's pretty cool, right? Yeah, it's super cool. Don't poke your eye out. Oh my gosh. Anyway. And by the way, oh, where's the sheet of paper?

The makeup department gave me this. What else do you have? They said, congratulations. You're the proud new parent of an adorable baby alien to make sure your baby alien is cared for and will live a long time. Here are some tips. Number one, use a dry duster or microfiber cloth to dust. Avoid getting your baby wet. Two, avoid bending or posing the arms and legs too much to reduce micro tears and paint cracks.

Three, don't feed after midnight. Oh, little brown ones. avoid placing in areas with direct sunlight five admire your baby and sing to it nightly a lullaby to tuck it in before bed thanks for a wonderful season uh your onset makeup effects and puppet team that was very cool that's so cool had to share that those guys are awesome no they're super awesome why the heck didn't we get like a you know a model of eight four seven two or something we were working on voyager we didn't get to take home anything I have to say on the resident alien crew and cast and everything they are so sentimental uh as we wrapped up

these last this last week or two yeah people were giving gifts it felt like the christmas holidays you're you know people were giving out hats and patches and t-shirts and and baby aliens and it was just crazy you know comic books and um more so than any production that you've ever I think so. It's a really nice cast and crew that love showing their affection to each other and showering everyone with gifts and little trinkets. I love it. It was crazy. Wow. Yeah. Anyway, and now I'm back home in Utah. Yeah. And we're excited to be home. So that's the end of my update. That's a lot of updating we did today. It is a lot of updating. This is a long intro for everybody, but we just got to catch up. But for

what you just said, that makes me feel like I need to come on a set visit on the last day of the season. So I can maybe possibly get a swag or two, a piece of swag or two, yes. Yeah, it's a good group. Okay. So this week's episode, now that we have debriefed everybody on our lives, is the episode 30 days. Okay.

So I think, yes, I think we should go watch this. We should go watch this for sure. All right, everyone, we'll be right back after watching 30 days. Hey, everyone, we're back from watching 30 days. Yes, I feel like it took me 30 days to get through this episode. I can't believe you don't remember anything about this episode because this is all you. It's like, what? It's crazy.

It really is crazy. First of all, I just want to say, I was right. This is the underwater one. Remember, I brought that up. I was like, isn't this the underwater one? This is the underwater one. The only thing that I really, when I hear the title 30 days, what I always think about is the brig scenes when I'm in the brig and writing the letter. And one thing I found out after watching this today and rewatching it and starting to remember

is that this episode was really short. And those scenes were not in the original script. and this episode which scenes were not all the brig scenes all the brig scenes oh basically basically it was like

he got sent to the brig but all the stuff about neelics coming and writing letters to dad and all of that stuff was added because the episode came in short when they edited it all together

it was like 10 minutes short which is rare which is really rare usually they're over usually they're over yeah Yeah. Usually they're long and they have to cut them down. This one was almost 10 minutes short, which is a huge number. And so I think what they decided to do was expand out this time in the brig with the letters to dad and all this stuff. So that's why it sort of felt almost like two episodes in one. Like yes, you know, with the flashbacks and everything, because it was all added later. Okay. It fits into the premise of the show. Yes, it does. The episode, but it definitely was added on later. So. okay um yeah i thought it was that it was interesting so many so many things to talk about let's start with our synopsis our poetry synopsis oh yes oh yes here we go here we go my haiku

for 30 days an ocean in space containment field weakening Paris disobeys ooh nice you captured it the haiku was elegant simple

okay the limerick not so easy not so simple I probably restarted that five or six times with different rhymes and words and I couldn't was this all you

or did you have any help on this? You know I'm just going to say the limericks are hard and so getting some support is absolutely understandable okay okay okay anyway here we go with a limerick for 30 days dear dad i'm in the brig let me explain tried to save a notion from dying in vain jane way was pissed but here is the twist i'm an ensign now but harry won't complain Okay. Yeah. There you go. That's a good one. It was worth the five or six different versions. I finally

Harry might have a little. Harry might complain. He might be like, I'm supposed to be the only ensign here. You can't be an insin as well. That's true. Okay. Yes, you were saying you had different versions of how you would come about with this limerick. The thing about a limerick is it's got to have a little sense of fun to it. Yes, it does. So I think this one had a sense of fun and very happy with it now. Yeah. Okay. Very good. All right. Let's talk about the important people in this show. Oh, and we forgot to guess who directed this one. So we used to do that. We didn't do it on this episode. So Vinrich Kolby, so Mr. Rick Colby, who has not, you know, he's been kind of AWOL for a while, and now he comes back to do this one.

He comes back. Yeah, we all loved Rick. He did the pilot. You know, he did Caretaker. One of our favorite directors, he just, he's so good. He's good with character and acting. He's good with composing shots that amplify the story and the scenes. He uses all kinds of different tools.

you can't pinpoint him down to just no one style you know yeah sometimes it's really big wide shots that are very cinematic sometimes it's super tight close-ups he just really shoots what i would call a full meal directorially like you know it's not just like you're having one entree or one part of the meal you're having you know the appetizer the main course the side dishes the dessert that it's just everything he does such a good job so rick colby uh did a great job and i did remember as i watched this once i realized rick colby directed it i did remember those brig scenes with rick and how great he was at directing me and making it very personal and very grounded he was just great i do remember as an actor yeah it felt so good to have rick there because

he didn't say a lot sometimes he'd just use a couple of words to sort of inspire you to get you in that where he needs to have you yeah as an actor exactly to focus you in he was great all right story story by scott miller teleplay by ken biller and let's have your rundown on our guest stars well um i'm gonna i'm gonna save willie garson for last i'm gonna i'm gonna jump to uh benjamin Livingston, who played Berkus. Berkus. Burcus, yes. As you know, I love to go back to their very first job.

Benjamin Livingston's first job was a TV show I'd never heard of. In 1995, his first job was Love and War, the television series, don't remember it. But I guess he was a guest star on that. So that was Benjamin Livingston, Berkus. We also have the Kramer twins. Yes. Delaney sisters. Yes, the Delaney sisters, Heidi and Alyssa. Now, they are from Vancouver originally, which I had forgotten, but they're from Vancouver. And they sort of made their name in the commercials for double mint gum. Do you remember the doublement twins? Yes. That whole campaign of different twins for the doublement gum. They were in one of the commercials. They were in one of those commercials. That's how they sort of got noticed. And Voyager was actually their very first TV job. They went on to do MTV undressed after that series.

I think in season two of that, they were prominent and other things. But Voyager was their very first scripted TV show. We also have Warren Munson as Admiral Paris. Now, he had been on this show before and playing Admiral Tom's dad, Admiral Paris. but this was his last episode he did the voice of Admiral Paris yeah yeah and then this was the last time he played Admiral Paris after this it was Richard Hurd who took over that in that role okay so you know back to the Kramer sisters every time I hear that name all I can think of is that movie Kramer versus Kramer that's funny so now I want to come back around to Willie Garson so Willie who played Riga I knew Willie

since I was a young actor. I knew him long before Voyager. We had done a play together at the Ensemble Studio Theater in New York many years ago. I knew him around New York when I was starting out as an actor. He was a friend.

He was somebody who I knew from auditions. We had a lot of mutual friends in common. So I knew him on a personal level, not to bury the lead on this. Willie Garson died last year in September from cancer. And he's very young. He's my age. you know he was a very young man um he had fostered a young boy and then adopted him

and raised uh became a single father of of a of a what is now a young man and was an incredible incredibly devoted father and uh and friend he had you know willie's willie was one of those guys that everybody felt like they were his friend you know i didn't see willie all the time We didn't stay in touch constantly, but whenever I ran into him, whenever I saw him, it felt like not a moment had passed. And I got to work with Willie on White Collar when I directed the show White Collar. He was a series regular on White Collar for years. And also Sex and the City.

A lot of people know Willie from Sex and the City. That was among many, many other jobs. Yeah, he's definitely a very, he was a very, very, very prolific actor. He did a lot of different jobs and many different types of characters. So you were right. The other thing you were right about was the opening scene is your demotion in Janeway's ready room. Right away. Right away. And you are escorted to the brig. You know where it's at. You're a little salty that they're trying to touch you, you know, lay hands on you. But yeah, it's a very mysterious scene. I'm all of a sudden Paris is in trouble.

We don't explain why. Yeah. And he's a bit cocky. He like jerks his arm away. He's like, I know the way to the brig. Which is old Tom Paris. It is. So old Paris is resurfacing in a season five episode, which to me, I thought, huh, that's a little

interesting. And we know that clearly this is not an episode that was shot season one, that they held off until season five. This is decent five. So they kind of fell back on some of the old. habits of Paris, which, you know, I guess happens every now and then. I think I do remember saying to them as we got into the later seasons, and maybe it was at those dinners, but I do remember having conversations with the writers or whatever,

where I said, I love the way the character has evolved, but there must be, I remember this conversation many times, I said, it's a shame to get rid of his rebellious nature totally, just write stories where he's being rebellious for a cause. yeah i said that for years because the first couple seasons he was rebellious for nothing for like selfish self-serving right reasons and i was like you know if you had written him being rebellious for a cause early it would have been much more effective it was for nothing it was for you know selfishness so yeah i love that they brought that quality back in i did notice in the scene that was very thin on coverage.

And I was like, it had the big wide shot. It had some regular, you know, conventional coverage. And then after Paris left, there was this profile on Janeway. And I thought, oh, it feels like we're missing. Like that shot was for a longer scene. And they cut some dialogue. Little did I know. Little did I know later on we're going to come back to that scene and repeat it.

And we see the rest of the dialogue. And we see, but I felt that in the first scene. like it seems like there was more here that they're missing cut yeah and then after you're escorted out that was also a strange shot in the corridor you're walking then you have a little triumvirate of seven harry and balana watching you walking yeah to the brig and it was just like okay we're just we're just kind of cluster yeah why are we clustered there waiting for you what are we doing you know yeah i wrote down what are you guys talking about yeah what do we know nobody says anything to me. By the way, Balana just sort of takes a couple steps towards terrorists. He steps toward you and

stops. It doesn't say a word. No, no. It was like, no. Yeah, no. It should have said, you know, I, I'm here for you, hon, babe, whatever, you know, something, some, some support. It's going to be okay. Yeah, it's going to be okay. We're here for you when you're, when you're out. I don't know, but it was very bizarre. So, yeah, I don't know. I'm wondering, was that added as well? My memory, as I watched this, and I did a little Googling real quick, it seems like I did remember that we shot this all the brig stuff like a month later or something wow i remember rick coming back and directing these scenes that were added scenes and i remember being like what wait a minute this is like this was not in the original script so i didn't know any of this like

do you know what i mean no totally it would have been nice to know yeah that that this was part of the story i would have included that in the performance i guess in some way but But the whole letter to dad, all the scenes in the brig were added after and shot up like a month later. So maybe the hallway was later. Possibly. All right. So now we're in the brig. We see Paris is actually working out.

But this is the funniest thing. Neelix walks in and he's on one, two, three. And he sees Neelix and he goes, 98, 99. It's like, why are you trying to impress Neelix? I mean, it was a funny piece of writing. I laughed at it, a little bizarre. And he has the food. And this is when, you know, you have a little nice, little interaction with Nelix.

He's trying to be nice. He leaves. And by the way, you know, he brings Leola Root Stew. And Tom's complaining like, oh, Leola Roostoo again. But I got to say, I think Tom secretly really loved Leola Root. Yeah, no, I think he ate that with relish. I think he actually enjoyed it. So he was just pretending to want a pizza.

Because he loves Leola Root Stew. Because he talks about it all the time. Yeah. Yeah. But Tom wants some Holodeck privilege. and the elix is like this is a prison not short leave yeah and this is the beginning of the dictation of the letter yeah the beginning of the dictation by the way the t-shirt you know bob blackman put tom in this t-shirt which i'd never seen before yeah that i that tom paris was wearing and it was

this sort of tailored shirt i thought it was a nice shirt that's i like i like the shirt um i don't think the peck things were there though so no yeah so that was just your regular chest this time and then was my real it just looks so much more comfortable than what we normally wear i thought it was you know flattering i you know yeah i was never a take the shirt off kind of actor that was not my comfort zone but no but you look good in in that shirt definitely i thought it was cut it was definitely flattering for your figure and and i thought yeah and i and i thought bob blackman was always trying to push the envelope which i appreciate and when you push the envelope in life in any way like sometimes you're going to win sometimes sometimes you're going to lose sometimes you're going to lose

sometimes you're a form-fitted shirt and sometimes you're a little black strappy item. Yeah, exactly. But I thought this was a win. I thought they, you know, I love that he tries things that are different and can really have some big success. I thought that was a good shirt. Yep. Anyway, yes, starts dictating the letter. I mean, I guess I'll say overall, I really liked my performance.

And I don't always. I'm usually very critical. But I did feel overall in this episode like, wow, I had some really nice scenes. I'd forgotten about this. I'd forgotten some of the scenes with Janeway or in the brig. It's just the highs and lows, the kind of rebellious side, they're down to earth side. I was really happy.

And so even in a simple way of pacing back and forth and trying to start the letter, I thought, oh, wow, I'm not pushing. I'm not forcing the performance there. It's very natural. Yeah, it was good. I do feel that you had a lot of, okay, if you compare this to threshold, another Tom Paris episode, lot, you know, both episodes you're doing a lot, but this episode, you're doing a lot, a huge

variety of things. Like, you know, for instance, when you were repairing the issue inside the shuttle when the water's coming in with the breach, you know, you're getting wet there, you're using, you just, you got to do a lot of different things in this. That's what I, I guess that's what I'm saying too. I agree. It was like, wow, there was some very simple naturalistic scenes. Yeah. There was Captain Proton getting to be, you know, melodramatic and larger than life. There was all kinds of, yeah, I was really overall, really happy. And the starting of the letter was the first moment in the episode where I was like, oh, wow, he was just being kind of a jerk, Janeway and cocky. And now he's being kind of, and he was funny with Neelix with the pushups.

And then he was very kind of sensitive and insecure starting the letter. Wow. There's already been a couple of shades that are definitely. that are unusual for them to write that and for me to kind of find the right pocket. So yeah, I think any actor who would have had a chance to act in this role for this script for this episode would have been happy with this script. There's so much for you to do. Yeah.

So then we jumped to Captain Proton, which I was so happy to see more Captain Proton. This is the first time we see the twins. We see the Delaney sisters. Yep. And they're playing along. And they're playing the characters of Demonica and Melicia. So two mistresses of evil. Is that what they're called?

The twin mistresses of evil. Yeah, the twin mistresses of evil. I do want to say, though, that the very first shot of Captain Proton is the famous but on fire scene. Oh, yeah. As we get into the Captain Proton story, the very first shot is Captain Proton flying through space with a jet pack that has giant sparklers coming out. and he's talking into his Captain Protone watch. This was the famous scene where they put me up on a teeter-totter with real giant sparklers and flame-proof pants, supposedly.

And long story short, they put me up there, strapped me in, lit the sparklers, which they couldn't turn off. And it caught my butt on fire. My pants caught on fire. I was up on the teeter-totter. I couldn't pat it, like the flames kept going. it was really old school, dangerous, and could have been bad. And it was, but, okay, my butt caught on fire.

It did catch it. Yeah, you had multiple layers of clothing there. They told you you would be safe. But the funny part was, and I'm, you know, I apologize for laughing at what happened. But no, no, no. It was when you started realizing you were burning, you started flailing. You started, your hands started going all over the place. And everyone on the ground thought you were joking around.

So we thought, we just started laughing. Oh, that's just Robbie being Robbie. And not until you did this move. I remember standing there watching you. And you started doing time out, time out like that. And then everyone's like, hey, something's wrong with him. And so we pulled you down. You got pulled down and we realized that you burned your body.

And fire extinguishers and all that because the, the effect they had in the jetpack was real pyrotechnics. Correct. It was not, it was not CGI. It was just, this is real. real sparklers shooting out and not just a tiny, I mean, there were so many sparks coming out of 30, 40 feet. Right. And the actual jet pack, it tilted down and it started shooting all the flame, all the sparks onto your bum, and that's when you got burnt. But we just thought it was,

oh, he's just joking around. He's kidding. And we know that was the, that was the famous my buckup burn. Yeah. And if you look at, and they didn't get the shot they wanted, it didn't work out. So if you look at that shot. Yeah. There's actually from my belt line up is me. Yeah. And from my belt line back is built. That's like my legs aren't moving. Nothing's moving back there because it's it's like built with photographs and other elements. They didn't even use the shot. Oh, my bug got burned. They used parts of it, but they had to piece it together. Oh, wow. You'll see my body's moving up top and my legs aren't moving at all because Dan Cray told me they had to build that anyway. They could have done it without me having any sparklers on my back.

They could have shot that and added the sparks later. And I was like, great. So I almost burned to death. So your butt was a casualty for not. It was really. For no reason. Yeah, no reason at all. Oh, my gosh.

The wardrobe that Bob came up with for the twin mistresses of evil, just brilliant, the whole headpiece and everything. they looked great and my favorite part of that segment of this of this scene is when you when you say you two are going to jail for a very long time and they both in unison go ooh like that that was i wrote that down to comedy gem i love that yes very funny mm-hmm very funny i thought everybody was doing a great job over over playing over dramatizing the captain proton thing and then chokote calls and yeah we need you on the bridge so we jump to the hallway and now paris is talking about star charts and jenny and megan are back to their normal personalities not their holiday personalities and they're like all business they're 1400 hours right we'll have the star charts

sorry about that yeah and they leave and then and and then paris says hey harry i think jenny likes you And he's like, I don't want to, I don't, I'm not interested in Jenny. She's aggressive. She's annoying. No, Megan's the one I like. She's quiet, artistic. She's got the dimple. And Tom's like, wait, Megan has the dimple?

Doesn't Jenny have the dimple? No, Megan, it's very funny. Very funny. But also, isn't it funny that Megan is who is who I am with in real life? Oh, yeah, that's right. And then Megan and I have, we have friends, Billy, he's Asian American, who is married to Jenny. So there's another Asian guy married to one of the other Delaney sisters. Oh, that's funny.

About that, yeah. And I did make, the other notable thing here is that this is the first time that we see the wardrobe not in black and white. Oh, yeah. Right? So we've, the entire time, we've only seen black and white Captain Proton. And because we've been called to the bridge, we're walking out still in our wardrobe. And it is the first time we see how. what it looks like in color.

So I think that was definitely something. Yeah, that's true. I didn't even think about that. Yeah, the fans are probably excited about that too. Like, oh, look at that. So I know I was. I was like, oh, yeah, finally in color. Yeah.

We have a ship shot next, and Voyager's flying over this ocean planet, and it's very stormy, and I just thought it was a super cool shot. I think that the Viz effects department was nominated for an Emmy for this episode. This episode, I believe it. Yeah, I think, I think Voyager this year, this year of the Emmy nominations that happened that year when we filmed this. I think Voyager got two or three Emmy nominations. This was one of the episodes.

And I think DS9 got another Emmy nomination. It was like Star Trek almost swept the Viz effects Emmy nominations this season. I think it was like four out of five nominations were Star Trek shows. Yeah. And this was one of them. Agreed. Very, very much on point. And especially for a 90s show, this episode, all the Viz effects on this show looked amazing.

I agree. Yeah, this was really home run. Yeah, and just the whole concept of an entire of a plant or or in a planetary like, you know, um, surface that's all water, just a lot of an entire, just one big ocean is, is a really, uh, interesting and cool idea that, you know, I, I, I never would have thought of this storyline, this story idea and it's, it's wonderful. It's interesting, this idea of this giant ocean and what we ultimately find out, is this machine is holding all the water.

It's basically this technology had kind of created this water plant, right? And yet last night, Rebecca and I watched this movie called Moonfall, which is a similar concept of aliens create this machine, this technology that actually the moon has collected a surface around it, but underneath that surface is really a job. giant technological space station.

And that's been, like since H.G. Wells time, they've talked about the kind of internal structure of the moon. Maybe the moon's not the moon. Maybe it's a spaceship covered to look like a moon. Right. So it was funny just to see this water episode and then that one, yeah. Moonfall movie. And they were like both kind of similar, oh, maybe the moonfall writer actually watched this episode and got it, you know, a little inspiration from Voyager. Yeah, it was just funny to watch this and then to watch Moonfall in the same day. I was like, oh, my God, this is a theme of sci-fi concepts. Yeah.

Yeah. So now we're on the bridge and we see this planet that is basically an ocean, an ocean planet. Three ships emerge from the ocean. They look nice. Look at the visual effects here. I mean, they look really, really super cool. And they start firing on Voyager. They don't even say anything.

But Voyager is no match for these three. We disable one of the ships. And now they're ready to talk. And now we are introduced to deputy council, Berkus, of the Monean maritime sovereignty. Now that's a mouthful for you right there. Imagine if you had to introduce yourself like that every day. Yeah, by the way, the Moneans, so Berkus and we'll later meet Riga and some others. But when you see them all together, my first thought was like Whoville.

Like they look like, like the makeup looked like. The Grinch, the Grinch, who stole Christmas, the Hoolville people. Yes, their faces, the makeup that was used, they definitely look whoville, but their wardrobe, I wrote down, they're crayons. I mean, they're all crayons to me, you know. They did look kind of like, different colored. Walking crayons, yes. Yes. Pull over hoodies.

Yes, yes. But you're right, I didn't get the Whoville connection until you brought that up. I immediately was like, who do they look like? And then it hit me later. I'm like, Whoville, they're whovills. So they're not happy that we've violated their space. Yeah, stay away. And then, you know, Jamie's like, look, we have no intention to be aggressive here whatsoever.

And then his response is, well, then why are you here? And she says, because we are explorers. And that sort of puts them at ease. And they beam over for their tour of the ship. Nice scene when they're in the corridors with Nielix there sort of interacting with, I guess, I don't know if he's next to Riga or not, but he's interacting with one of the people there. And Janeway sort of shows them around.

They end up on the bridge. And did you make any note of the fact that they are using handshakes so easily? Oh, no, I didn't notice that. But you're right. Why would they, if they're, you know, Maneans, not every alien species will use a handshake to introduce themselves. So I kind of felt like that's one little hole in the script or something that people forgot about. like, hey, we just take that for granted that as human beings, we shake everyone's hand and we meet them. And then that's what happened on the bridge.

It's just the Maneans are shaking Paris's hand, you know, and we find out that they're nomadic people who came to this ocean planet 300 years ago. They haven't been here the whole time. It's interesting because on the bridge, I noticed that Tom Paris is much more enthusiastic and he's got so many questions. And normally that's not Paris. No. You know, and even Janeway sort of looks at him like, wow.

seem very excited about this. Yes. It was a little bit out of character that he was... A little bit, a little bit. Excited. We find out later that something I never knew about Paris until the episode, I guess. He was a big Jules Verne fan. Yes.

An ancient sailing ship fan. I mean, it's like, huh? Yeah, we don't know that. They wanted to be in the Navy instead of Starfleet, but his dad made him go into Starfleet. I never knew any of this about Tom. Look at this, all this backstory we're learning right now. Yeah. I also want to say, I think,

both Tom and Harry's hair look great in this episode. Yeah, they look good. So you get up, Janeway notices how enthusiastic you are. She invites you to the briefing room. We're in the briefing room. And initially, I thought that Berkus said, a Riga, but he was saying, Riga knows about this. So it's not a Riga, but Riga is the name.

Riga. Yeah. And it's, you know, so he's the capital of Latvia is the name they chose for him. Yes, exactly. Yeah. So Riga says that the ocean was probably created naturally, but the ocean is losing containment. That is the big problem because, you know, they want to keep that their habitat going and containment loss is a bad thing.

Did you have any comments on the briefing room scene? No, I mean, I thought, you know, Willie Garson starts speaking here for the first time, I think in this scene and it was funny to see Willie just because I knew him pretty well and he was a pretty outgoing guy to be playing this sort of like soft-spoken quiet. I was like, that is such so not Willie. Well, that I also made note of that. I said, I said, this is so different from how he is in other roles. He just took this very, just almost like he was sedated. Yeah, very shy. He's kind of shy and not very confident. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was very funny. He was the walled out. I noticed that right away. I'm like, that's nothing even close to who he is in real life. Yeah. Yeah. So now

move to the captain's ready room, we find out here, the 20,000 leagues under the sea. Yeah, Paris and Janeway are sitting on the couch. And this is one of those scenes I made note of of like, I never get a scene like this with Janeway. No, no, no. So, you know, Tuvac has them all the time. Chacote has them all the time. Seven has them. The doctor even has them. I never have these scenes where it's kind of working with Janeway as opposed to combative or getting orders or just, you know, problem solving. This was more like a character scene. Most definitely.

I think I'd never had one for five seasons almost. No. And I made note, I do not remember this scene at all. And you saying ancient sailing ships were always Tom's first love. And I thought, oh gosh, what? Who knew that? And you just, you know, you tell Janeway that a few modifications to the thrusters on a Delta Flyer, all that's needed to be seaworthy.

the Delta Flyer can go down and take a look at what's going on. And Janeway approves your mission. And I also made a note, Robbie, Tom is super duper happy about this. I mean, your face is all like, like you just, you know, it's like your Georgia Bulldogs just won the championship is the kind of look you had on your face,

which was a rare look on Tom's face. Tom's never that happy. And I also think Kate and I were very good friends, very close during the making of the show. our trailers were near each other we talked quite often right and shared a lot of you know personal stuff and time with each other and so it was really nice looking at the scene to know that we had a scene like this in the middle of that run of the show when we were the closest that we ever were right and having a see like that friendship came out is my point I feel like you could you could see

that in the in this kind of scene that we had a real friendship chemistry there that that that really came out. So it was fun to play the scene. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. Next we go to the hallway and Paris is super excited. He wants Harry to join him on this Jules Verne mission. He tells seven. They run into seven. He says seven, you're going to be the Bosen at one point. She's like, what are you talking about? And sailor talk. Yeah, sailor talk. He goes, you can call me Skipper. And I laughed at that. It was very funny. And you called me your first mate. Yes, you were the first mate. Bosen, Skipper. Gilligan's Island going on here.

And then Riga shows up, Willie Garshish shows up, and he's overloaded. He's like the guy with all the luggage. He's got like bags all over him. And he's like, am I in the right place? A lot of colorful items that he has with him. I wrote that down. Yeah, it was great. We get on the Delta Flyer.

And the first scene in the Delta Flyer, I thought, was I just made a note, Rick Colby directed this beautifully because it's really just two shots. but the way that he sort of lined up the blocking and we sort of landed in those seats. It was just really elegantly done. And I don't always feel that way in the in the shuttles. It's not always the most flattering place to shoot scenes. And I thought he shot all the scenes in the flyer really well. Is this scene the one where Riga comes from the back and hands carry the pad?

Yes. So he's, yeah, that's right. And so he focuses on Riga. he pulls back the pad goes to Harry and then yeah that was a really well block scene you're right it was just simple it was basically I think it was I wrote down two shots but that's my memory was as I watched I was just like that was so well done you know it was flattering for the actors the lighting the all of it and like I said when we're in these shuttles whether it was the old shuttle or the delta flyer it's not always the most flattering place yeah you know it can feel a little like you're just sitting in a car

and it didn't feel that way. It felt very cinematic. They did a good job, for sure. We have a ship shot of the Delta Flyer diving into the water. Another cool VFX shot. It feels very Jules Verne. They start to come upon the cities that have been built by the Mnians underwater. And there's the shots where you see that big moon roof that's in the Delta Flyer.

You can see the ship's passing. It really felt like 20,000 leagues under the sea. Yeah. Very cool. very cool we see that this is their main oxygen and desalination plant and paris is in awe he's in heaven watching you know it's like is jules verne dreams coming true then we go to the ready room i think yeah yeah jamway's ready room and what i wrote down is the first thing you see is this super super cool shot of the ocean planet in the background and it's a skew it's not it's not where you know

where the planet is just is normally at a normal orientation it's off to the side you know what i'm saying So I thought, hey, that's actually super cool. I love that shot. Chikote brings Berkus in to Janeway's ready room for Janeway to tell Berkis that the ocean will completely lose containment within five years. And Berkus is, he doesn't really, he's not too phased by that, though, which is interesting. He's kind of like, huh, okay. You know, it's not phasing him. And you're kind of wondering what's going on here, but we learn a little bit later.

it's more political than yeah his whole his whole storyline is like you know uh environmental issue on our planet we don't well the politics are too too hard we you know which is a very familiar story right like most definitely you know the ozone layer yeah with uh you know on our planet or or just the environment global warming all of that or just our oceans also being overfished and stuff like that right we're dealing with that on our own. Yeah, all of our environmental issues here, climate change, all of it. Yep.

It's often the same response. Well, politically, I don't know if we can do too much. Exactly. So that's the story they're telling here with him. Real life parallel. Yep. We go to the Delta Flyer again. Now they're nearly 600 kilometers underwater,

and the hull starts to crack. The structure is failing a bit at this depth. But it still holds. No, nothing's going on yet, though. nothing's going on yet but you start hearing that you know the creaking starting and there's a shot outside with the lights of the delta flyer which are just colorful and cool it was a really cool underwater shot and they see this ancient machine yes riga's like i don't know what this is it looks like some ancient technology of some kind deep deep in the ocean that they didn't even know existed yeah harry says it's at least 100 000 years old it's some kind of reactor, which is generating massive amounts of artificial gravity. So they realize this is what is holding this ocean together. Yep, exactly.

Controlled by a core computer, this reactor. So Harry starts to upload this database from this old machine onto the Delta Flyer so we can analyze it and figure out what's going on. And the upload is going to take some time. So we've got to stay at this depth. And suddenly, as we start the upload, the Delta Flyer shape. and bumps. And we realize it's a giant sea monster, basically. It's like a giant electric eel. I think when it hits the Delta Flyer, Seven says something like, that was 500 volts.

It's emitting biothermic discharges. That thing looks so unique. I was trying to figure out, like, what does it look like to me? It looked like nothing that I had ever seen before. Yeah, it was very different. Yeah. Again, great job. Very cool creature at the depth. here and we do our shields are fried as it attacked us thrusters are offline a lot of issues seven uses our our on board i guess phasers or something yeah to stun the creature and it retreats but now we've got a leak they actually hit us one more time so she fires the phasers and someone says oh i just that just made a matter and that that that's that final hit before it retreats is what causes the hall breach right there water starts to pour in and by the way when water pours in a set that's a big deal because

Like from a production standpoint when you're shooting on stage, anything involving, you know, water, fire, some of those elements that are, that can do damage to sets, that can hurt people or flood the sound stage or all of those things. Near wiring, you know, there's issues. So I was really impressed that they were able to create this leak on the Delta Flyer. Did you remember? And contain it somehow. Yeah. Do you remember, do they put a huge bucket or underneath where the water is shooting it from? I think they had built almost like in a shower, you know, when they put the drain at the end, waterproof kind of, yeah, they built something. I remember standing in that. All right. So I also want to say, I really enjoyed Ken Billers teleplay. I thought there were some great lines and there was some nice subtle humor in this one. And you and I are both proponents of, you know, more funny. We love the fun. Yeah, agreed. It's in this episode. This had a lot of different elements, which sometimes we'll

do an episode that's, you know, very emotionally based. And it's kind of in that world or or very action based. But this one had action. It had comedy. Yeah. It had character stuff. I felt like it was, it was really good. So all around. He did a great job. Yeah. We're back in the brig. You're still, you're still dictating 600 kilometers underwater. And you say like something out of one of those Jules Verne stories. You used to read me when I was a kid. So now you know where your love comes from of Jules Verne, your dad, the dad that you don't talk to for Paris. I know, how crazy, right? I never would have expected that there was the sweet side to their relationship because

you assume that it's disciplinarian, disciplinarian, nannies, nannies, nobody, you know, no one really being there for his raising as a child, but clearly, that is not the case. Your father read these stories to you, so we find more backstory here. Yeah. So there's a ship shake. Everyone's called to battle stations. The brig guard is called out. And Paris is like runs to the edge of the force field. And he's like, hey, what about me? You know, let me out of here. I'm your best pilot. I'm your best pilot. I'm your best pilot. And then as he's standing there by the edge of the brig, there's another ship shake. Right. And this was just a silly fall. This was this was another PSF. Do you remember what the PS? The pathetic Starflea fall. You somehow. I kind of bounce off the wall. I roll sideways. I clearly I had to hit my head. Yes.

But we don't see that hit, though. We just see you bounce against a wall out of camera and you fall to the ground. Kind of unconscious, I guess. Right. The doctor shows up. And this is when we learned that we were attacked by five ships. And the only reason why we got away was because of Ensign Cole Haynes, awesome evasive maneuvers where calm gets a little.

jealous because now, now the king of the hill, Tom Parris, the pilot extraordinaire, has a challenger. There is a challenger to your title. Ensign Colhane. Who is that, by the way? We don't even know. We've never heard of Insin Colhane. This is the first time in five years that we've even heard the name Colhane mentioned. And now we know this guy is, he's an ace.

He's a pilot that can do all kinds of things similar to what Tom Perth. Well, this is who comes up when Ensign Cullain. Cole Hane on memory alpha. Okay, that's Louis. So evidently, Louis is a great pilot. Louis Ortiz. Louis Ortiz is Colhane. So yeah, I guess Louis was going to take over for me. And we love you, Louis. Louis was great. He was a regular background artist on our show. And a cool person to hang out with and talk to. Very cool. Yeah, he was great. That was Ensign Colhane. That's funny. They just gave, they arbitrarily just assigned Louis' face to that name. I love it. All right. So any of the comments that you made

or any notes on the rest of that brick scene when the doctor's treating? Well, you know, I love when the doctor says your injury is what Naomi Wildman refers to as a boo boo. Because Paris is being very dramatic. Yeah. I did feel like the doctor is scanning around and it looks like he's giving him some kind of hair treatment. Like, yeah. And he's a little rough with you too. He's kind of manhandling you. He is. He is. And here's another thing I noted. So the doctor finishes talking to Paris. And we do learn that he's got 20 more days. We're only 10 days. Yeah. This is the beginning of thing. Yeah. But then the doctor stops at the force field, waits for the force field to be dropped. He goes through and then you see it go back on. And I was like, wait a minute.

Why did you turn the force field off for the doctor? He's a, yeah, he's a hologram. Oh, you know what it is? No, no, I'll tell you what it is. It's for, his mobile emitter. The mobile emitter is actually, right? Because think about this. If he walks through that, the mobile emitter will stay. It will not cross through. All right. Good. Thank you for explaining that because I was like, this makes no sense. Why is he? Right. Okay. Yeah. All right. Because yeah, because he's not on a holodeck. He's in the brig. There's no hollow projectors in the as far as we as far as we know. So okay. Yeah. That's true. That makes sense now? Okay. good all right we go back to the flyer structural integrity is weakening tom is very wet he's welding the

hole shut yeah the only way that they can surface is to jettison uh everything that they can to not jettison transport that's what they said so so so we just transport all the nonessential equipment off the ship back to voyager or wherever the heck and transport it venting plasma plasma plasm i did it plasma plasma the old plasma routine um so venting plasma plasma and And that's how we're going to just eventually rise to the surface. Yeah, but Paris says, no, we've got to stay. This is our only chance to fix this container generator. I love your suggestion.

You suggest that you're going to just take an environmental suit and let everyone else go. And I'm thinking, wow, that's a very, very strong environmental suit to withstand 600 kilometers worth of pressure. Of pressure. I was like, I don't know if that's a good idea. He was a hero. Yeah. Harris. He's a hero. All right. But everyone agrees to stay. We're all like, okay, if you want to stay, we will stay. We'll stay. Okay. We go back to the bridge. They pick up a breach in the containment field that's holding the water. Yes. First, we see that shot. We actually have an exterior shot of the breach kind of being. Yeah, it looks like a giant water funnel or something. Water spout, yeah. Yeah, going on in the space. Yep. But they can't reach the Delta Flyer. They're trying to they can't reach the flyer. We go back to the the flyer and the react suggests reinforcing this field he says uh he says a jamway look let's reinforce this field with a deflector beam jaymway says sure that's a good idea and again like you said

cote tries to hail the flyer nothing and burkus is there he's nervous he doesn't know what's happening yeah so we're back inside the delta flyer and the reactor is releasing this pressure as we saw they realize that they think it's being done deliberately by this field generator right and harry finds the density of the water has been increasing over the past few years and the generator periodically has to create these breaches in the containment field to keep itself from being crushed. So basically the Meneans, whatever they're doing, we're starting to piece together. Well, we don't know yet that's the Moneans, but we know that something is creating more pressure and this generator, field generator, is trying to keep a balance, a healthy balance in

the ocean. So to be totally specific, the reactor is diverting all. this power to its own force field, to its own structural integrity field because of the extra density. So now when that power is pulled away from the gravity of the, you know, holding the water that now there are little breaches here and there that happen because of all the power that it needs to keep itself alive so it doesn't crush in that massive pressure situation that it is. But Paris is the one that says initiate a power transfer to stabilize the core seven says, okay, I can do this, but it's only a temporary solution. It's only going to work for, yeah, briefly.

But it does work, though, because on the bridge, Tuvac tells Janeway that full containment has just been reestablished. And Janeway says, oh, the deflector beam. Tuvac says, no, no, it's from within. Within. The Delta flyer. Somebody did something in the flyer, and they detect the flyer on a slow ascent. Yeah, we go back to the Delta flyer, and somehow Tom's hair is magically dry and style, I guess. I didn't write that down.

from like the breach and it's like pouring all over him. And then all of a sudden it's kind of fluffy and he's all good. Tom added a hairdryer to the Delta flyer. I don't know if people know that. He has a little hair dryer. He's got a blow dryer, a little gel. Yeah. He's ready to go on the flyer.

There's an entire salon in the back. I don't know if people know this. There's that huge cargo area and a hair salon as well. So Paris is studying the database and he finds out that this ocean used to be part of the landmass. and that this reactor was sent into space and it drew all the water off the planet. And then it's basically the Menean mining operations that are destroying this ocean. But it's just a cool idea that this reactor was sent into space and it just attracted the entire ocean off of a planet.

It's kind of like moonfall. It's like that movie. I just watch. They create this space station and then it pulls all of this rocks and dirt on the the outside so it can hide out we go back to the brig and there's little paris little tom playing with a model ship was a cute scene with the little kid yeah playing with a model ship and he hears these voices admiral paris's voice janeway's voice harry's voice yeah and harry's voice is saying wake up wake up and he wakes up yeah and he realized it's a dream and he's a little unshaven that was all fake makeup that was not because we shot this all in one day so yes yeah and i and i asked, and I actually wrote that down, I wanted to ask you, that was fake. Yeah, the five o'clock

shadow was not really your five o'clock shadow. I also wrote that in that little scene, you hear, like they say, you were, you're going to have 30 years of solitary confinement, right? And when I wake you up, you're a little, you're a little salty with Harry. You know, and Harry's sort of like, you know, what are you going to do? Delete the letter. That would be pointless. And And then you say, at least I'm consistent, which I felt was old Paris. Well, no, no, but it was a, it was a reference to earlier when we're in the turbo lift. And you talk about my choices for women being, oh, yeah, was the wrong girl. And I say, at least I'm consistent.

So this is, you know, another kind of reference to an earlier scene. Yeah, call back for the riders. Yeah, so I thought, look at Ken Biller. Look at him go. He threw the same line with you to me. And you're brushing off Harry by saying that, you know? And that sort of ends the scene with Harry's tagline is, what was it you once told me that your father used to say

you'd never finished anything? And that was almost, that was a reference to, do you remember the episode where I go back to Marseille France and I see Tom Paris, who's been drinking and kind of hit in the hooch? And I kind of say that, you know, well, you amounted to nothing. It was the same tone again, in essence. So I kind of felt like that was an homage to an earlier episode there. Yeah, I think so. I think there was some nice callbacks to old Tom and kind of trying to bridge the gap and connect the dots between where he came from and who he is now. I thought it was great.

Yeah, we have an exterior space shot of the Delta Flyer making its way back to Voyager with Paris's voiceover. We've told Berkus about the alien field reactor and how the oxygen refineries are destroying it. It's a nice shot, just seeing the Delta Flyer go back to the hangar in the rear of Voyager. But basically we offer in the briefing room, we offer Berkus and Riga some temporary solutions, but they're going to have to make some big changes. You know, Balana has designed an oxygen extraction design that will help, you know, not damage their environment so much. Right. But basically, Berkus' only concern is the political impact. Yeah, he's really sidestepping the issue.

He does request the shield and thruster schematics for the Delta Flyer because they want to design a probe that's going to be able to get down. down to those depths to monitor the generator. But other than that, he's Mr. Burkis' Mr. Side Step in this entire scene. Paris gets a little hot under the collar. He gets a little angry about things. He's passionate about it. And Burkis says something like, you know, we have a saying, Brian in the veins. Yes.

Tell them what it means, Riga. It's just a funny little exchange, Brian in the vein. I think I can imagine what that means. He's like, yeah, it means you're so. connected to the ocean that, you know, you feel it or whatever. This is the second time Berkus is like, and Riga, take it away. I mean, it's like you talk about it. Yeah.

Yeah. Paris is upset. They leave. He says to Janeway, we got to do something. She's like, nope, prime directive. We cannot. We've offered help if they don't want it. She reprimands you. She's reprimanding you here.

She's not happy about how you reacted with Burkis. Well, she says, you know, I like your passion, but when you're in a room with me, check the attitude. Yeah. She's pretty tough on him. She is, she is. Which I think is great. It's great, you know, I like that they allow some conflict in a good way.

And especially because, like I said, I kept pitching the writers, have him be rebellious for a cause. Cause, a reason. And that's finally like, it's here. This is the episode. Here's your call. I'll buy a scene. Yeah, I'll buy the character being rebellious and breaking rules, but just do it for something that matters. Yeah.

Anyway, she says, check the attitude. We go to Captain Proton next. and there's Paris just sitting there in the Captain Protet. Alone in thought. Love this scene. Oh, very sad. Belana comes in. Yeah. And he talks about the Jules Vernavadole in the ocean. He said, you know, when I was a kid, this was all just a fantasy and stories.

But now I'm passionate about this. Yeah. And she sees it. She says she's proud of him and that he's found a cause. She literally, what I was pitching the writers for years. Yes. Balana says, you finally found a cause. and I love it, and she's, which she should have said,

she just said, Tom, the writers finally found a cause for you. That's what she should have said. She says Captain Proton may not be able to save the day, Tom. But Tom Paris can. Yeah. So she kind of was the reason why you flirted with violating the prime directive. I think so. He's kind of saying like, hey, go do something about it.

Yeah. I don't know. It was a little like, uh-oh, uh-oh, here we go. We go to the transporter room. Paris stops Riga just before he's about to leave. This misses the transporter operator. Oh, yeah. And so you know that he's got some.

Something where legal is about to happen. Yeah. It's about to go down. And he says, you know, hypothetically Riga, like, what if, you know, all of your, your factories got shut down? What would happen? Yeah. And Riga says, you know, the politicians aren't going to do anything about this. And so Riga goes, okay, if you can get me down,

there, I will shut them down. Right. And Paris basically says, that's all I need. I just need you to ask me because of this prime directive thing. Like, so this is my, my loophole. This is your backdoor policy. This is my loophole. How to get around it. Okay. They asked me. They asked me, Captain. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So we go to the bridge. Burkis calls and says, hey, there's a shuttle that's just your shuttle's back down or what's going on. Yeah. And Janeway's like, oh, I guess. guess they're going to take some radical action. Yep. Those radical environmentalists are going to do something.

Yep, she tells them that Paris is acting alone. We're inside the Delta Flyer. Janeway tells him to return to Voyager. Paris says he cannot. And James says, cuts off the calm. Yeah, Janeway says, you're disobeying direct orders. And Paris just turns the calm off.

He doesn't want to listen to it. Chikote suggests an old-fashioned depth charge. Tuvac says, okay, I can modify a photon torpedo go to make an old-fashioned depth charge. And then Harry's like, Captain, it's talking about Tom. Yeah. Thanks, buddy. I tried.

I tried. I said, we're not going to open fire, are we? And then Janeway, cold as ice. He forfeited his status as a protected member of this crew. The second he launched that shuttle. And it's like, uh-oh. And I felt bad. And you saw my sadness in my favorite.

It was sad. I did. I was really upset. That's part of what being a hero is about, though. You've got to be willing to, you know, take the consequences. Yeah. Then we have a cut. It just jumps back and forth between the Delta Flyer and the bridge, 36 seconds of target.

Janeway gives her final warning. The missile was armed. Stand down, Mr. Paris. Now, this is what's weird. They modify the photon torpedo into a depth charge, meaning it should fall into the water and slowly, like a depth charge, come down to the right depth and explode. But it was really just like a normal photon torpedo.

It just shot, went into the water, and just kind of kept going. It kept going and it hit the missile. It looked just like a normal photon torpedo. So that's where I thought, oh, it was a little bit off there. Different than described. Yes, exactly. Yeah, but basically the depth charge of this photon torpedo prohibits what we were trying to do to shut down their factories. And, you know, it stops us from taking the radical action.

So the planet is, you know, the water is not safe. But I did love the countdown because they're going back and forth between Janeway going five, four. Oh, right. Yes. You go to the Delta Flyer and Paris is going three, three, two. And then we both go one, one, fire, fire. It was like back and forth between Paris and Janeway. That was kind of a cool. It was very cool.

Editing thing. Yeah, agreed. Then we go back to the same scene from the teaser, but now this is the longer version. I knew there was something amazing in that first scene. Now we see the longer version that explains everything. The whole passion alone doesn't allow you to take matters into your own hand. You broke the rules for something you believed in, though. So this is something that she kind of respects that you have something that you believe in,

but you still broke the rules. And that's why you're going to the brig. Yeah. Yeah. And then we go to the brig. But now we're jumping to the end of his 30 days. Two fuck comes in. And I did like when,

goes out, he wakes him up and he's sort of even more disheveled, more of a beard there. That's not your beard again. That's not my beard. Yep. And then there's a shot that sort of pans over as they walk out in the hall. And I liked how Tom Paris or me stopped in the hall and just kind of looked around at like the freedom. Like he ended outside of that room. And so you saw that little tab blow of him standing in the doorway for a moment and sort of like, wow, I'm out. And it was just a little detail. It's a small detail, but I did write. down, you know, good choice by Robbie as an actor to actually stop, take it all in. I'm free because I think it would have been less impactful if you just walked right out, you know,

and you just see the shot of you just walking out of you just walking out of a everyday room, like it's a normal thing and it wasn't a normal thing. You left. And those kind of little details are, I'm going to say, not scripted. Those are the things that you or I would add to the scene. Correct. But like a writer, the actor is able to create moments. Yeah. You know, We're given a script, but that's just the beginnings of what the scene is about. And then we add these little moments. And I feel like that was a moment. I was really happy.

I am guessing that that was a moment that I either Rick Colby or myself had said, hey, what if we stop here, let the shots or linger for a moment? Yeah. Yeah. And just so the fans know, none of our scripts ever really included any blocking directions in there. You know, like it never does it say like, Harry, then looks around frantically or whatever. That's not written into the script.

It's really up to the interpretation of the actor and the director. Yeah, like Harry enters the room, sure. Yeah, of course. Or Harry sits up, you know, sits in front of Janeway to plead his case. Right. You know, it may have some standing or sitting or entering or exiting, but that's about it. Yes. And usually it's the kind of stuff that's pretty basic.

All the other stuff, the actors, whether it's Kate or you or myself, you know, we all add that stuff to it yeah we go to paris's quarters which has the orange color i saw that you know there's my i saw my phone case you requested that i did request orange yeah i knew it yeah but we go in balana calls and she's like hey rumor has it that you're free now and she says she orders she makes a dinner yeah she orders me as your superior officer that's right um and and then he finishes the letter and says, you know, I don't know if, uh, if I can, you know, explain how things went wrong for us, but at least now you, maybe you can know who I am a little better or something. I thought that was really, um, a great lesson of like, sometimes we may not agree.

We may have to agree to disagree on certain subjects. Yeah. But at least just sharing who we are and why, you know, sharing our experience and our perspective and, and, and, and, what we, yeah, what we experienced makes us a little closer to someone else. And that's all we can do. We may not always agree. We may not always see eye to eye, but at least we can know each other a little better. That was a great lesson at the end, I thought. And I like how you finish the letter and then you set it to transmit when within range of earth. Because earlier, you weren't even going to send this. And I feel like it's almost because of Harry saying what he said in there. And he's kind of put, yeah, you never finish what you started and also you know what's the point of you not sending to him it's pointless and

you know and this it's obviously a little bit of a sore subject for you so that's you brushed it off but I think the message was there subconsciously which made you say I'm gonna I'm gonna send this to my dad so a nice little end to this episode great so your theme would you say or your lesson overall my theme I wrote down sometimes doing what what's right means breaking some rules okay that's my theme i kind of got that's what that's my takeaway is that uh it's kind of what i was pitching to the writers for a couple of years yeah and i think it did lead to the story uh being developed this way yeah that breaking the rules isn't always a bad thing yeah you know these absolutes of rules can never be broken if there's uh enough of a reason sometimes you may have to break some rules

you're going to take the consequences for for breaking the rules but as long as you're as you're willing to do that and you believe in what is truly right. And you try every other way you can to not break rules. You know, anyway, yeah, sometimes you may have to break the rules to do the right thing. That's my takeaway. What about you? My lesson is never agree to do a stunt where sparklers are shooting out of a jetpack. Yes. Yes. That's my lesson. I will never do that again that is a big lesson a big big lesson your rating this is a tough one for me because i want to try to keep uh you know a healthy perspective yeah my character and me as an actor had a lot to do in this episode you did so i'm you know we're always biased i'm sure when we have those kind of episodes

but i feel like this was a good episode i'm going to give it an eight actually oh i know i know okay nice i feel like it did have comedy It had our holl at Captain Proton. I'm always a fan of that stuff. It had real development in a way we hadn't seen for Paris. And I just thought it was really good. So I'm going to give it an eight. What about you?

I'm going to go a little bit, just a fraction lower. I'm going to give it a 7.7 is what I'm giving it. 7.7. All right. I have in my hand. I have in my hand. Tell us the Oscar winner, please. Oh, the Admiral and Captain's ratings.

of 30 days. Yeah, are 8.2. Wow! 8.2 average. I think that's the highest that they've rated an episode so far. Wow. Yeah.

Goodness. That's pretty cool. Thank you, Captains and Admirals, a nice, a very respectable rating on an episode that I feel like I contributed a lot to you. They're 0.2 away from your rating and 0.5 away from mine.

so it's very close good job and i think everybody had something to do in this episode balana didn't have a lot she had a you know one's basically one scene she was in the hall right but that scene with that one scene with you was the catalyst for you to actually go on your mission yeah or maybe two scenes yeah yeah but i feel like everybody had something to do you know the doctor had a nice scene you and i had some nice scenes yes everyone i don't know yeah Yeah, 8.2, it's great. Great visual effects. So, yeah, so, yeah.

Okay. Nice. Well, that was fun. That was a lot of fun. And what is next week's episode? Yes, next week's episode is counterpoint, counterpoint. Counterpoint. Yeah, so we will look forward to seeing all of you next week when Robbie and I review

counterpoint. See you then. Awesome. I'm going to be B. B. B. B.

B. B. B. Bhop B. B. B. Bess.

B. You know, but I don't know.