The Delta Flyers - Time and Again

Episode Date: May 18, 2020

Garrett Wang and Robert Duncan McNeill discuss Star Trek Voyager episode Time and Again. We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with Megan Elise, Rebecca Sims, and Jessey Miller. Additionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co- Executive Producers Ann Marie Segal, Philipp Havrilla, Jason M Okun, Stephanie Baker, Stephen Smith, Sarah A Gubbins, Kelton Rochelle and John Tufarella. And our Producers Breana Harris, NCC-1701, Máia, Steph Dawe Holland, Richard Banaski, Father Andrew Kinstetter, Gregory Kinstetter, Charity Ponton, Josh Johnson, Laura Swanson, Chris Tribuzio, Thomas Melfi, Liz Scott, Chloe E., and Deborah Schander. Thank you for your support!Our Sponsors:* Check out Mint Mobile: https://mintmobile.com/TDFSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hey, guys, it's Robert Duncan McNeil and my co-host, Garrett Wong. Say hi, Garrett. Hey, guys. There he is. We just wanted to welcome you back to our weekly podcast and web show, The Delta Flyers. And it's a show where we recap and re-watch every single episode. that we made of Star Trek Voyager, rewatch it and get reminded of all the little details that happened many, many years ago. And we also bring in a guest now and then to remind us

what their experience was as well. So it's really fun. We've been having a great time so far. And how are you doing, Garrett? I'm doing good, man. This has been an interesting day for both of us. You had gardeners over and I had maintenance people to replace a broken water heater. So we've we've kind of had a delayed start in recording today but I'm super happy, super stoked that we're here and we're ready to go. Yeah. Yeah. It's been a lot of fun so far. I'm kind of a I feel like I'm starting to re-experience like some of the things that happened as we started off on that long journey of making the show. I'm literally like my body and my emotions are like re-experiencing all the anxiety that we had.

ain't that the truth yeah right yeah um great well all right for those of you that are with us on patreon stick around we're about to play our game what do you remember and for everybody else we will be back with our recap after this break hey guys we are back the delta flyers Robbie Duncan McNeil Garrett Wong we just finished watching the episode time and again and yeah i just watched this so a lot of things come back to mine first of all first of all we start on the bridge you're the first line i got the first line and i go up to your station i'm like dude there's these two sisters they're hot let's go and you're like no i got to work dude come on i can't i was surprised that the delaney says

sisters were so early in our series. I thought that was... I was shocked. Much later, I did not remember that we talked about them in episode three, you know, like right up front. I dido. I was like, wait a minute. But then I started thinking about...

Then I remembered that when we were filming, we talked about them, and I was... While we were filming, I remember thinking, are we ever going to meet them? Because we don't see them in this episode, but we talk about them, and I think we continue to talk about them in further episodes. Oh, yeah. forever but season we might not have met him until the second season i don't know or me honestly i don't

think we met him until season four or five later so we'll see as we start watching them but i i just love how um how what was that line that you had um you said you kept encouraging me to come go on this double date and i kept saying no no no and then you end up saying i said i want to run this diagnostic you're like you need to run a self-diagnostic so that was like really funny sci-fi trek humor to me And then again, I was bugged again by my line, because when you first come up to me, I say, nah, I really want to get on that trans-state or assembly diagnostic. That was yet another looping snuffoo where I spent probably 45 minutes or half an hour on just trying to do that one line alone.

And it wasn't coming out right. And no matter how hard I tried, Robbie, I couldn't get into, because when you do looping, you almost have to bring yourself back on the set, get into the mindset of do your preparation as an actor, and really think about how am I going to evoke this feeling, you know, to be, to be genuine and to match what I, what I came with, came up with on the set. And I don't know what was happening in my life at that point in time and that day, probably an argument with the woman I was dating at the time is my guess or something, something, you know, in my home life was distracting me. And I could not get it. And that was a perfect example right.

that first line that I couldn't bump out at all. No. It did not even notice it. It did not seem like a line at all. Well, if you listen to the next line I talk, I say, sorry. And the sorry is genuine. It's there. It's present.

The other first line is good. I wish I could have looped another couple of Harry's in there because I was like Harry, Harry, Harry, Harry. I counted. Harry, Harry, Harry, Harry. Five. I did. I counted them because I don't know.

do i didn't say a word or a piece of punctuation that wasn't written so they must have you five harried me yeah five harry harry harry why so many harrys good lord we go to kess's quarters where she wakes up abruptly we come back to the bridge there's a shockwave neelix is on the bridge and and when he says he doesn't know anything about it the funny thing is the look on two box face at neelix it's just like just this look of like he's rolling he's not rolling his eyes but by his look in his eyes it looks like he's rolling his eyes, the Vulcan way, right? Also, Kate comes out with her bun, but it's a different version of the bun. It's a little looser.

It's a little bigger. Clearly, they were still struggling with the hair. Yes. And by the way, we were all struggling with the shakes still. Kim Freeman tried to teach us, but the shakes in that early, you know, that big distortion wave or whatever, our shakes were not very good. No. Um, yeah, so we head down.

By the way, I did notice that Les Landau directed this episode and I have that note too. Yeah. And I really, I really loved when Les directed. He was, he was always somebody when I was shadowing. He was, he was always really good at passing on information and, and sharing his, his wisdom. I liked Les a lot. Yeah, I used to refer to him, Robbie. I don't know if you know this.

I called him Uncle Les. oh yeah i called him uncle literally i was like uncle lest and you know i mean for anybody to call anybody that's not their blood relative and uncle it's that means you're feeling very comfortable with this person yeah he's a good guy he's a great guy and what people don't understand or some people know and some people don't know that we had um we had multiple directors on voyager it wasn't just one director right so throughout a season yeah every week and a half we get a new a new director right And then was it rare that it was rare if somebody came back two or three times in one season, right? Wasn't it?

Yeah, there were only a handful. I think Rick Colby came back obviously a few times. David Livingston always directed a few. And Les. They gave him a few too. One of our main guys. Love less. Later years, Alan Craker.

Oh, Anson. from Happy Days. Hanson Williams. Anson, yep. He was there a bit. The bar and freaks. Yeah, that was our kind of stable of Trek directors, but often a lot of new faces in there.

So Les was one of the regulars that we really loved. I remember, so we beamed into that away team beamed in. And I saw all that smoke on this stage. And I remember when we first started in the series, hearing from some of the TNG cast that they had really had some conflict about all the smoke after all those years. And I remember it was one of our first few episodes, but they smoked that stage up when we did the away team in that destroyed, you know, part of the city, part of the planet. And I remember thinking, oh, my God, we're just getting started. And this is a lot of

smoke because they put the smoke on the whole soundstage. So you can't get away from the smoke. And back then they used to use much more chemicals. Now it's, it's a better version of smoke. But back then it was definitely not great stuff. And so that came back to me when I saw that smoke. Oh, yeah. Oil based. Wasn't it an oil based, some type of oil? But chemical, heavy chemical content. Yeah. Yeah, you could smell it. You smelled it on your clothes when you were out. Yeah. Yeah. What else? Oh, well, I wanted to say that it was interesting that we never really get the name of these aliens, like who they are. I mean, it starts with Neelix being questioned by Janeway, do you know this planet? It's this part of the galaxy. And Neil's like, I don't know.

And then we go down there. And then you guys talk about, I mean, your ruse, when you guys get crossed over from the time fracture into their time, you start saying that you guys are from the Caltoe province. Yeah, of course. Duh. You know, duh. Everyone knows that. So that's the only name that we have. And then I find that's funny that that's the same name as the Vulcan. Isn't that the Vulcan game that Tuvok plays, Calto, the little, it's not the chess game, but it's a game where you, you sort of like pick up sticks, but you're trying to rearrange these little metal pieces. Yeah, I remember, I don't remember the name of it, but I do remember what you're talking about. I think that's Calto, so that was interesting.

Well, I thought it was interesting, this whole, like this nuclear, this nuclear type disaster because this was early 90s we were making these episodes, and I remember, as a younger person in the 80s that nuclear protests were a huge part of like the political scene and the social scene lots of people like you know chaining themselves to nuclear power plants and yeah so it's funny because it's that's not really nuclear um energy power plants and things aren't really in our daily news anymore not like they were in the 80s so this felt like it was a little bit referencing some of that more recent stuff that had happened a few years before with all the protesters and things.

I also forgot that, you know, I didn't forget that Kess was a telepath, but I loved actually playing with some of her abilities, you know, her telepathic abilities and that this wasn't exactly telepathy, that it was something else. And I thought that was interesting to kind of get to know her a little bit. Well, yeah, I mean, if you think about it, it's probably stronger than telepathy because there's that scene where she's literally, she's speaking to the captain through time.

You know what I'm saying? When Janeway turns around and she's like, Kess, and because she hears, Cass, when she's like, Captain, and that's her powers. And she's finding them herself. There's that whole scene. I always liked, I know that Kess was a character

that people maybe are conflicted about. Some people love, some didn't. I always found that her a very interesting character, though because she kind of had a spiritual side to her it was a side that was sort of like spiritual it was very kind of how about ethereal ethereal her zen quality and that those kinds of talents to be able to have telepathic and and crossing through space and time sort of communicating and there's something that's almost religious isn't the right word but spiritual about that kind of character. And it was nice to have that on our show for a while. How about transcendent?

Transcendant. I like transcendent. Yeah. I'm just going to come up with more synonyms. Yeah, that's nice. The entire episode. I like the way that Les directed those little flashes when we were first on the way team. And I turned around and had light on my face and then it was gone or some of those little filmmaker touches. I thought they were slightly theatrical. And I love that. I thought it was cool. How did you get along with the kid? I think I got along with him nice. You know, jumping later on, I thought I had when I thought he was going to die, the little kid. And I, you know, we were prisoners or whatever.

And I had, Paris had that moment with him of, you know, I'm sorry. And the kid's like, for what? Right. And I can't remember my line. And he's like, I was like, never mind or something. You can see that Paris was empathetic. And I liked that that, that they had that moment. You know, it was very small, but I really like that moment.

He was empathetic for sure. Yeah. Now, when you and Boulana were pitching like to Chocote about this projector thing, like, oh, God, we can. Yeah, we can, you know, use this projector. And then I thought at one point Chacote was like, and so are we good to go or whatever he said? And I thought you were going to have a moment, like in the previous episode, with Bala,

where you both turned each other and you went, War particles! And you didn't do that. You were like, sorry, I don't know. So clearly you and you and Balana just don't have the vibe that... Are you talking about the briefing room scene?

Is that the briefing room? Yeah, that was in the briefing room scene. Okay. Yeah, I just remember that scene. I was so nervous as hell because this again, still my... This is a, you know, very early... I'm saying.

I'm having a back back. to like, oh, I mean, you're experiencing this. I'm getting nervous again all over again, filming that. So I just, you know, that I remember that clearly. I also remember that when we were filming that scene where we're down there and you guys are already trapped. You and Jane, we are in the other reality. And so we're looking around, we're scanning,

and we're scanning, we're scanning. And then I come across this, the com. I can isolate the com badges, the com badge signals or something. And so I say, Captain, I've, I've found the blah, blah, blah, and then Chocote walks over, and he's like, the subspace beacon is what he says. The subspace beacon. And that take took that scene, that line from coming out of his mouth, took 17 takes. This was the longest.

Oh, my God. Why? Because he kept saying subspace bacon over and over again. He couldn't get beacon out. He said bacon every time. And I remember Lest Landau. looking at me, a director, and we were, and he, we both had this look like, is this candid camera? Is someone going to come out with it? Because literally, he couldn't get it right. And I'm not,

and I'm not embellishing or exaggerating. It was 17 takes. And I kept thinking, that's so much film stock that we're running through. Because, you know, when you film, it's, that, that's expensive stuff, right? It's not cheap. So, and I kept going, oh, my God, he's, he can't say beacon. And, uh, it's, it was, It's comical. It really was. Oh, God. Hey, Garrett, have you been traveling this summer? Oh, my gosh. So much already. I don't always travel, but this summer's been insane. Trip after trip. You've been doing your impersonation of me. Yes. You know what doesn't belong in everyone's epic summer plans, though? What? Getting burned by your old wireless bill. So while you're planning your beach trips and your barbecues and your three-day weekends, your wireless bill should be the last

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Up front payment of $45 required, equivalent to $15 a month. Limited time new customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Taxes and fees extra. See MintMobile for details. I want to also comment that in the sick bay, Robert Picardo said emergency medical holographic system again. He did?

He did. He said it to the computer. So that's the second time I heard system. And I never, if someone had said to me, oh, remember when you used to call it the emergency medical holographic system, I'd be like, we never did that. Not once. Well, already in the last two episodes, we've said at least at least a couple times that I've caught, which is very funny. It's very, yeah, strange. That's bizarre. And also that whole scene in the sick bay where Cass and Neelix are there. And his first line to Kess is, your brain is not on file. And I started laughing because that whole scene seemed like he was doing a stand-up comedy yet. I know. He talks about it. Yeah, he says, The Voyage of the Damned. He talks about your brain is not on file. And he's like, you're definitely, at Neely's complaints, what's the diagnosis? And the doctor says, well, she's the healthiest member of her species that I've ever seen. Actually, she's the only member of the species I've ever seen. So it was a so, it was a comedic, you know, night at the comedy store. Yeah. Yeah. He was very funny.

Speaking of funny, was I wearing a dress? I came around the corner from getting that outfit. And I'm like, oh my God, am I wearing a dress? No. That outfit they put me in on the planet. It had like a corset and a girl. I don't remember that. I remember the trading card, but the trading card's only from like here up.

But when you see the whole thing, head to toe, it looks like a kilt or a, do you know what I mean? I do know what you mean. but I just think you had a shirt that was extra long. It was like a really long shirt. I noticed later on when we were walking to the power plant or whatever and the other guys that actually live there on the planet, we don't know their name because we don't. Those guys didn't have kilts on.

Their just came like this far below their belt line. Mine came all the way down to my knees. I was, maybe I bought the wrong size because I didn't know how you're supposed to wear it. It was funny to me. I was very surprised to see that, that outfit. Yeah. So when you guys are looking for the source of the power on the planet, you head towards the power plant,

and that's where the protest is going on, right? So when you get to the protest and we see the guards, that's our first glimpse at our stunt coordinator, Mr. Dennis Matalone. We see him there with a little, did you see, he was the guy that hits Janeway with the rifle, right? And then you come in and you knock him out. I did stunts, dude.

Yeah. I dove into stunts. I love the stunts. You did. And I think you... I did like a double-fisted, kaboom! Right, but see, who does that?

Only in Star Trek. Only in Star Trek. Only in Starz. Shatner sort of... Like the double-fisted thing. No one fights like that. Megan made a funny comment. She said, like, look at Robbie.

She goes, look at Robbie. Because what you did is you hit him from low, and then you hit them up high like this. And then Megan goes, She, Robbie just volleyballed that guy's head, like a volleyball movement. I played volleyball in high school. I was on the volleyball team. There you go.

That's where, yeah, that's where I got the move. And right before that, I just want to say, Kate and I had a warp particles moment. We had a line where we both looked at each other. I can't, I didn't write down exactly what it was, but we looked at each other. And we like said the same thing at the same time. In this episode? Warp particles! Yeah, I wish I'd written down the line, but I was like, oh my God, we had a warp particles moment.

We're developing our own terminology. War Particles moment. You volleyballed him. I fought for Janeway. See, they were tremendous. Janeway and Paris together, I'm telling you, earlier. There is, yeah, there are definite hints of that. You can see that.

By the way, Balano was super smart with the whole, you know, anti-Polaric sheet. Like, she designed the thing that you're going to wear. So you don't get, like, sucked into some. You know, now I know all these terms now that I'm upset. you know some alternate reality or some you know some other uh what am i looking for uh space subspace fracture you know like like we do you know she was very smart she was very smart um but i do have a question why did they pull out handguns that look like they're from a 19th of a top show sorry oh my god like i know that they're a pretty

Rewarp civilization. We say that later on. But when they pulled out those guns, like, that's one thing about sci-fi shows is if you don't build everything, like it's a whole brand new world, and you pull out some guns, real, real handguns, it's like, oh, no. Yeah, I know. But I honestly, I think, this is my guess, I think the prop master screwed up. Something happened where whoever was supposed to deliver those alien phasered, you know, rifles or what, but then, they screwed up. They get, but they made the sound sound like that it was a futuristic. It went doosh like that. It didn't go, right?

Yeah, but then, but then later on when, uh, when Kate's in the, in the tunnel there, she pulls out a weapon that looks like an alien gun. Like why? Exactly. So that's what I'm saying. Why did they have some, some, um, guns with bullet stuff and some, you know, like our guns and some that were, it was a weird, I didn't like that, that choice. No, I think they subcontracted out to some, you know, subcontractor that didn't build it on time.

And then they finally brought in the weapon they were going to use. And that's the one Kate got to use. And up to then, they said, well, what are we going to do? Well, let's just grab these nickel-plated barretta's, you know, that we just found, you know, on the side of the street. It was really, yeah, disconcerting to see that. By the way, I thought the kid was really good in the episode. And I did remember doing some scenes with him. I thought he was really good, even at the time.

And I really enjoyed it working with, I always like acting with kids because they're just, even if they're bad actors, they're just so, something about them so real. I always think kids and animals can kind of keep you in reality check. And I thought he was really good that kid. I wonder, I mean, God, he's got to be, you know, almost 40 years old now. Yeah. Oh, yeah. He was more relaxed than I was in that episode. I'm going to look at that kid.

He's so good. He was good. any funny bloopers any funny bloopers you remember with the kid or with janeway when you guys were down there or in the fight maybe anybody's can't remember i mean i i i really don't remember i even though i just watched the episode i can't remember like extras i just am getting kind of you know inspired from what what we saw but yeah so janeway breaks the prime directive right she does you know it was crazy and you're watching from the side and your eyes are like,

you just did what? You just gave up the truth to these people. You're telling them what we're doing? And then you guys, the next scene, you guys are walking and she explains to you why she broke the prime directive because she already felt like

she had broken it before. So she said, okay, I'm just going to tell them what's going on because I already, we already ruined it by being here. We're the ones that are causing are leading to this disaster,

basically, right? so yeah I mean this is the thing with these like alternate realities or time travel or like you change the timeline and everything changes right that's fundamental to this episode as soon as she can be there in the tunnel and fire back preventing our team from rescuing them but but actually causing the explosion yeah then the whole timeline changes it's a tricky one I mean I remember when we would make these episodes I heard a lot of people say they're like the writers would even say they're hesitant to write changing timeline episodes because the audience often feels like, ah, we were gypped. Like, you just told us a story, but now you've changed

the timeline and that story really never happened. So we feel like we just sort of got jerked around. Like, you know, yeah, like it never happened. But then at the end, you see Kess come on the bridge and she still senses when everything's okay. She still senses something happens. So that, A, A, that shows how powerful her mental abilities are. They can even detect alternate. times of realities of that that didn't that happened and then didn't happen after being corrected which blows your mind right uh and um and then it maybe gives the fandom a little like oh okay well it kind of happened you know we weren't jipped that much you know so that was interesting by the way when i took that gunshot when i got hit total shatner okay so last episode you had that

headache i had a gunshot moment and then i do remember I do remember after I got shot, they wanted me to sit up because when you're laying down, the camera can't get good. It's harder for the camera to get good shots of everybody. And, you know, the up and the down

becomes more extreme. So they made me sit up. And I was like, but I just got shot. And they're like, no, but you need to sit up so it makes all the shots work. And I was like, oh. So I can't believe I like got shot. And just everything from the moment

I took the shot. I was like, ooh. And then. But it looked so Broadway-ish to me, the way you took it, because you were like, yeah, and it was like jazz hands. And it was really, it was very, it was very, oh my God, theatrical is what I'm going to say. That's what it was. And so in, when we were watching it, I had, I had Megan record me imitating you doing that. So that is, that footage will be in our bonus materials for our Patreon supporters.

You get to see that. Yeah. That was special. And that's about all I had to comment on. And, you know, I mean, I guess, for me, it was the takeaway was like, my takeaway on this was like the unexpected consequences that happen in life. Like, you know, the unanticipated consequences that we all sort of can relate to in some way. Like, oh, well, if I hadn't done this, then that wouldn't have happened or, you know,

this bad thing happened in life, but if, God, if this only... So what's the lesson behind that, though? I think the positive message for me in the Star Trek, framed in a Star Trek way, is that, you know, the prime directive makes a lot of sense sometimes, like, you know, there's, that there are unexpected consequences of getting involved or not getting involved. And not getting involved is not always the right, is not always the answer. It's not always the answer, right? Yeah.

Okay. And that sometimes sometimes getting involved. is necessary to actually, you know, contribute to a better outcome. Instead of staying out of things and letting the unexpected outcome sort of take over. All right. All right. Thank you very much, everybody, for listening to our recap of time and again. For those of you that are Patreon supporters, hold on because we're going to be entering into

our bonus materials, our winners and losers section, our do-over section, and our fan review section. Thank you so much. Thank you to Robbie McNeil, my co-host. I just want to thank both of us, want to thank everybody for your support and for listening and watching our recap and our and our memories of these episodes. Your support means the world. We couldn't do it without you. We especially want to thank Megan Elise and Rebecca Sims. Thank you, everyone, for being patient with us. We are learning on the fly as we do this. So as time goes on, these episodes will be tighter, better. We're going to know technology, the Zoom technology, different technology, microphone technology, how to light ourselves better.

You know it. We've definitely had a few hiccups starting up, but, you know, what endeavor doesn't have those hiccups, right? So our goal is to really produce a fine piece of content that you're going to enjoy and look forward to listening to. And, you know, all these small technical difficulties that we're having here and there are going to be remedied. We promise that. So thank you again for all the supporters on Patreon. And thank you for everyone else for listening. And next week, we will recap episode five.

It is phage. And I do remember some of this episode. So we'll talk about that next week when we get into the show. Thanks again, everybody. Bye. Thank you.