The Delta Flyers - Tuvix

Episode Date: February 1, 2021

The Delta Flyers is a weekly Star Trek: Voyager rewatch and recap podcast hosted by Garrett Wang and Robert Duncan McNeill. Each week Garrett and Robert will rewatch an episode of Voyager starting at the very beginning. This week’s episode is Tuvix. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.Tuvix:Following an accident which leads to Tuvok and Neelix becoming a composite being, a doctor must try to work out a way of separating the two identities. Meanwhile, for Janeway there is a frightening decision to be made.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise and Rebecca Jayne, and our Post Producer Jessey Miller.Additionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co- Executive Producers: Stephanie Baker, Philipp Havrilla, Kelton Rochelle, Liz Scott, Sarah A Gubbins, Ann Marie Segal, Jason M Okun, Marie Burgoyne, Chris Knapp, Michelle Zamanian, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Matthew Gravens, Brian Barrow, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, Megan Hurwitt, James Zugg, Mike Gu, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Vikki Williams, Holly Smith, Jesse Noriega, Dominic Burgess, Amber Eason, and Lucas ShuckAnd our Producers:Chris Tribuzio, Jim Guckin, Steph Dawe Holland, James Amey, Katherine Hedrick, Eleanor Lamb, Thomas Melfi, Richard Banaski, Eve England, Father Andrew Kinstetter, Ann Harding, Gregory Kinstetter, Laura Swanson, Luz R, Chloe E, Kathleen Baxter, Katie Johnson, Craig Sweaton, Ryan Hammond, Nathanial Moon, Warren Stine, York Lee, Mike Schaible, Kelley Smelser, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Matthew Cutler, Crystal Komenda, Joshua L Phillips, Barbara Beck, Mary O'Neal, Aithne Loeblich, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Heidi Mclellan, Dat Cao, Robert Deveau, Cody Crockett, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Oliver Campbell, Robert Hess, Cindy Ring, Andrei Dunca, Daniel Owen, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, Ming Xie, Mark G Hamilton, and Heather Chappelle 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, everybody, welcome to the Delta Flyers with Tom and Harry as we journey through episodes of Star Trek Voyager. Your two hosts along this journey are myself, Garrett Wong and my co-host, none other than Mr. Robert Duncan McNeil. Woo-hoo! Wow. You made it sound like I was going to be a surprise. Like none other than, you'll never guess. Robbie McNeil. It is a bit of a surprise, sir. You have some new news to share. I do. I am an engaged man now.

I am engaged to matrimony. Yes, I am. Yes. Engadjid, you are. Engage it, you are. A New Year's Eve surprise for Rebecca. Yes. Very exciting.

Yeah, it's exciting. I love that. Congratulations, my friend. Thank you. I'll keep everybody. updated along the journey as we go for updates on, yeah, plans, planning, all of the excitement, the nuptials. But yes, I'm very, very excited. Just so everyone knows, Robbie was trying to call me the day, the evening that he actually made the proposal. He was trying to call

to myself and Megan just to let us know that it happened. And we both got messages, but we didn't look at them until way later. And we were like, oh, crap. So the next morning is when we found out. And it's so funny because Robbie ends up calling me on FaceTime, like video, which he never does. And I'm like, what are he doing? Like, I'm still in bed, right? So then he calls and then I'm like, look, I call him back on audio. I got my hair, my hair, I got a bedhead or whatever. I don't want to, I don't want to answer with video. And he says, well, I need to show you something. I'm like, what does that mean? So you were very reluctantly put on the video. I was, I were luckily put on the video.

And then, of course, the announcement came on. And then, of course, my bedhead didn't matter at all at that point. You know, so it's good. So I was very excited to hear the news. This week's episode is two VIX. We're going to be going over two VIX. One of my favorite. I enjoyed this episode a lot.

Yeah, I remember filming this episode. Oh. But, yeah, yeah, I'm excited to see it. Yeah. Very cool. All right. So let's go watch this. episode and we'll be right now. It's been a while. I'm excited. Okay, let's go watch it. We are back.

Wow. Wow. Wow. I don't know if I'm sad or happy or sad. That's a very complicated episode. It is. Yeah. It really is. It really is. Oh my God. Um, first of all, on a lighter note, I just want to show you my shirt. Okay. Oh, yeah. Let's see. Oh, Oh, Admiral Kim's nice. Right. So for those of you that are just listening, I have a black t-shirt with white lettering on there. It says San Francisco, there's a Golden Gate Bridge at the top

in San Francisco underneath. And then in cursive, it says Admiral Kim's Bar and Grill. And this is a gift from Marina Kraftchuk, one of our Patreon patrons. and someone that was on the Star Trek cruise and a fan that I've been in contact with for a while now. I've known of Marina for quite some time. This refers to my story that I've made up

when fans asked me like, what happened to Harry? What happened to Harry? And I said, well, look, it's simple. Harry never gets promoted. So that's why he quits Starfleet. He's very upset. for now getting promoted.

And he quits Starfleet, but yet he rents out the retail space right next to Starfleet headquarters in San Francisco and opens up Admiral Kim's Bar and Grill, is what I tell you, where only ensigns or lower, get a discount. Everybody else doesn't get one. Oh, yeah, very clever.

Very clever. Nice. Yeah. I like that shirt. Yeah, it's a cool shirt. Very, yeah. Yeah, just so you know, it's from the guac and fries group.

is a group that started by Megan, basically, of people that were on the Star Trek cruise. And we had a secret Santa, but we called it the Secret Spock Christmas kind of giveaway thing. Oh, that's good. My haiku synopsis of Tuvix is Tuvok and Neelix, merged into one. It's Tuvix. Janeway separates. that's pretty clear that's pretty clear what happened wow okay thank you for that deep profound haiku now i'm going to give you a limerick okay before you give it to us yes what percentage is

robbie what percentage is rebecca i would say this is about 80 20 me oh one two yeah i'd say this about 80 20 me okay here we go huvok and neelix become one the new guy on board is quite fun Tuvix doesn't want to comply when he learned he must die by herself Janeway gets the job done oh mm-hmm

that's the limerick I think we synopsized it very well with our short little poetic poets yeah I'm sad again I know I know it's sad

let's just dive right into it who wrote and directed this one uh yeah this was uh written uh by well the story is by andrew shepherd price and mark gaberman teleplays by ken biller directed by the late cliff bowl so cliff directed this yeah yeah i always love when cliff was there yeah um wow yeah what what's your overall impression of this i'll tell you i'll give you my overall and it's yeah it just i you know i it's weird because i don't remember it ending it ending the way it did yeah i mean neither like it i did remember that that was a a discussion as as we talked about earlier i remember that janeway had to make a choice i just didn't remember the tone of it being so so abrupt and sad and desperate and yeah and um i My overall impression of this episode is I think it was really bad for Janeway.

I think it put her into a position to where she had to do something bad, but the alternative was also bad. There was no, there was no, absolutely no winner here. There was no. And I wish that they could have found a way that this decision could have sort of revealed itself to be a natural decision rather than Janeway sort of. siding it in such a dramatic way and then forcing it as as you know we're jumping to the end but forcing it onto Tuvix as he pleaded so eloquently and emotionally and in every way I just thought

it was really yeah it was very sad it is truly in Star Trek terminology a Kobayashi maru which is a no-win situation yeah that's and it's God, I mean, I really, oh, I mean, I'm, I'm really kind of just bummed out right now after watching this. I know. It was just a tough, especially how it ended with, with, I really thought that there was, after she leave sickbay and does the deed of the separation, I thought there was going to be a captain's log of her talking or some voiceover or another scene with Neelix or another scene with Tuvok sitting in the, I thought there was something else after that scene, but there wasn't. It went right to credits. And I said, wait a minute.

Yeah, and you really didn't get any sense. You know, you got a lot of the sci-fi science of what Tuvix picked up from the merging. But we got no resolution when they were separated again. Does Neelix remember what happened? Does Tuvok remember what happened? Do they have the memories of Tuvix? The collective memories of Tuvix, do they or not? Yeah.

They should, right? Shouldn't they? I mean, they should. Yeah. I would think that they would. I would think they would, but they don't, we don't, you know, that would have been a nice, I don't know, it would have felt satisfying on some level to know that. Yeah.

At least that our heroes that we know and love had some memory of the sacrifice that was made for them or even some bonding in a way that, that Neelix and Tuvok somehow out of this, the gift is that they are connected in a way that they, that no one else would. was connected, you know, on our show, but yet, um, like after they beam back in and they're separated, they should have hugged or something. You know, there should have been something that made us feel like, oh my God, there's another connection. There's this deeper connection between Tuvac and Neelix. All right. So this is interesting that we started with the end of the episode, but let's go to the beginning of the episode. Yeah, let's go back to the top. Okay.

So they're they're for orchids for these plants and everything on the planet. And it's, It's Tuvok and Neelix together foraging. One of my favorite lines was Neelix says to Tuvok, that you're more Tuvokian than normal, which was cute. And Tuvok at the end says, I wish you would be less like yourself, you know,

and not more like yourself at the end. Well, it was funny because just knowing the title, I think as fans or whatever coming into it, anyone would know, oh, we're headed towards some mashup of these two. and so I felt like that first scene sort of amplified their differences like more than I almost more than I've ever seen

like Nelix was more energetic and positive than I've maybe ever seen him and Tuvok seemed more arrogant and cold and distant than I'm used to seeing him so those were amplified qualities I also wondered immediately in the captain's log

she talks about it which she says they're down there because this may be a new food source and you know the planet may have something to help with their food supplies and so i was like oh okay well that makes sense why neelix might be there because he knows about food although and we'll get to it later on but at one point janeway talks about tuvix cooking and being so much better than neelix's and i'm like oh man why did the writers they just went after him people just talk crap about neelix's cooking so much. So if it's so bad, why did they send them down to the planet to be the guy to pick out the food supplies? Anyway, um, very true. The other thing I thought about as I, as I, you know,

watch that opening scene of them foraging. And I knew kind of the premise of this episode, but I was like, what if it was a different pair that had been sent down? Like, what if it was, what if it was like Balana and Kess were on the away mission? And they got, so you got, Balesce or you got Kalana or whatever Kless Lana Klanna Klanna but yeah I was like oh that would be that would be fun to go through like the matchups of like who else would would I like Balesce did you say yes yeah okay let's go through it so if it was Tom and Harry we'd come back is HOM or Terry Terry and then uh who who else if Chikotay and jacotay and Janeway and Jacote. It'd be

Jagote, Jacote, Jacote. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or Chaneway. Chicoatway. Chicoatway. Chicoatway. Yes. What would The doctor wouldn't work because he's a hologram. Well, if we just called Doctor. So Doctor and Neelix, if they went down, then it would be,

and let's just say that he wasn't a hologram. Let's say he could be merged. Then that would be. Daleks. I was going to say Delix. Delix. Okay. And Dr. and with Nechtor. Nektor. Nektor.

Nektor. Oh my God. Well, what if it was Tom and, oh, my God, if it was Tom and Chikote? Yeah. Ticote. Ticote. Or Chikotom. Chikotam. Chikotam.

Chikotam. Chikot Tom. There you go. Yeah, it would have been interesting to, like, you know, what other people could have been sent on this mission to forage for food? A lot of different combos could have gone down there. It could have been any combo, really. Yeah. Yeah.

I also like Neelik's singing on this away mission, by the way. Oh, yeah. Remember when he was singing the song? Although, I don't know if he knew the tune very well because he seemed to have a different melody the second time he's saying. Wait, that's not the same song you just sing. What if Tuvok and Kess are down there? Then it would be Kuvaq or Tuvests Or

We can go all day long Toose Toos Yeah, you could go all day long That's what my mind sort of going I'm like, oh my God But if we're coming If we bring it

Tovac and Eilks being Tuviks Now, what would their new hybrid race species be called. Would it be a Vulcan and Talaxian? Would it be a Valaxian? A vocaxian? Or a token or a

Talokin. I like, what was the first one? Valaxian, vocacian, token, or taloken. I like Volcaxian. Vocaxian. Yeah. Valaxian sounds like an erectile dysfunction medicine.

Sometimes you have a little trouble. You know what you need? Some valaxian. You need some valaxian right now. 10 milligrams of valaxian will get you going just what you need. It sounds like a pharmaceutical of some kind. Yeah. Alcaxian.

Having trouble while dealing with Ponfar, you might need valaxian. Perfect. All right. So let's go back to the beginning. We see the scene. They're down on the planet. Now they're beamed back up. now we find that there is a minor glitch in the molecular imaging scanners.

And I'll be perfectly honest, as I'm watching this, because I don't remember all the details, I thought, am I the reason why Tuvix was born? Did you think that too? Yes, I did. I did, because you were like working on the thing. Yeah. And then you say, okay, let's do this. Okay, it's ready to go.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank God, we find out it really wasn't me because everything was, it was operating within normal parameters. It was actually the crazy orchid. But I did think Harry was to blame for a minute. I really did. I'm really, it's a breath of fresh air.

I thought that it was my, you know, negligence that caused this. By the way, yeah. And then the next scene in Sick Bay, when they bring, you know, he shows up on the transporter room. And then he said, I think I better get myself to Sick Bay. And he heads down there. And you're down there. Harry's down there.

But Harry seems extremely suspicious of Tuvix in that scene. Did you notice that? your performance seemed very like I don't trust this strange are you talking about in the transporter room or in the sickbay in the sick bay and then you really yeah I thought you were extremely unnecessarily suspicious okay I thought I got it I thought I was I thought I was unnecessarily suspicious in the transporter room after we figure out who it is yeah it was a little too well that's what I thought you were playing there

that Harry was like you know on guard this is not not Tuvok or Neelix, and then it just doesn't make any sense. And even in the sickbay, that sort of spilled over in a sick bay. It carried over. Yeah, that carried over. Could not believe your eyes. You could not believe what you just saw. Yeah.

Yeah. I agree with you. I do. I do see that. I really enjoyed seeing that Starfleet uniform. I was about to say the same thing on my next note, but I was going to let you finish. Yeah. The Starfleet uniform was amazing, but I'm sorry.

I don't think that's how. it works. Like the DNA might have made up. But the clothes aren't going to do it? They don't re-thread and re-weave the fabric with all the things. I don't think that's how science works. Well, in Star Trek, it works that way. In Star Trek Voyager, it works that way. Clearly. I guess it did. I kept saying, why can't all our uniforms look like that? That's a little panache there. It's a little extra flashiness there, right? So I liked it. like the design and then it had like the i don't know what you call it the kind of neelick sort of big decorative pieces along it was very cool yeah yeah yeah good good job to bob blackman

head of wardrobe for yeah getting that one together so that was a good uh that was a good piece of wardrobe yeah i wonder who has that i want somebody's got that you know that they've auctioned off everything from voyager at the end oh every uniform except for the two that you pretty much stole um i i i mean and then jay may stole hers but but god you know if i you're the only one that didn't i probably probably so if i but if i knew now what i what i did not know then we all were yeah i would have a i would have a stolen two of my own just like you and i would have stolen two vix's uniform when they comes out of the yeah the two vix uniform is cool yeah the I don't know that. Stole is a strong word,

Garrett. Stole is a, you appropriated. I held on to. You never let go of them. I claimed my memories. You claimed them? My emotionally bonded. I mean, you know what else?

Were you a squatter? You have squatters rights to those rights of those. I also like literally sweated into these uniforms. I feel like it just wouldn't be right to let anyone ever put, on dirty clothes like that, that I took them home to do my own laundry. So stole is a, yeah, okay. All right. I'm not going to say stole from now on. I'm just going to say the five-finger discount. That's what you got on that one, okay? Yeah, so I would, I, somebody's got that out there. So if anyone knows who has Tuvix's uniform, please email us. I would like to know. I'm

curious. All right. I felt very bad for Cass. She seemed very upset initially, you know, off the get-go. It's like she was speechless for quite a bit of that. His first arrival and he was, you know, trying to engage her, but she was just could not put words together. She's in a state of shock. She was in a state of shock.

Janeway comes in. And Tuvix talks to her and says, you know, you're going to need your most experienced tactical officer on the bridge. And that's me. And then he did this huge eyebrow raise, like a Yes. Did you see that? Yes. So he did the Tim Russ, Tuvok eyebrow raise. He did that. But before he did that, when Janeway asked him, how are you? He says, I feel well. You might even say exhilarated. And right when he said exhilarated, his body movement, all his physicality was pure Nelix. It was just like, oh my God, that's Nelix moving around the way Nelix would move around and speaking in a bit of a Nelix cadence, you know, but then he ends it with the, with the Tuvac

eyebrow race. The Tuvac eyebrow was brilliant. I loved it. Tom knocked it out of the park. He really did. Yeah, he did great. I also loved when the doctor came in to talk to Janeway around that time and the doctor's talking about, well, yes, he has Tuvok's superior. and Neelix's abulience, he says, so please give him an assignment, any assignment. It was so irritating to the doctor that Tuvix was so funny. I wrote that exact quote down. He possesses Tuvok's irritating sense of intellectual superiority, and Neelix and Neelix's annoying abulience. So that was, oh, and then at the end, Tuvix grabs the doctor, just like Neelix would have

grabbed the doctor. Oh, yeah, that's right. one arm, hug, whatever that he does, which was very Nelix-esque. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We go to the briefing room next, where we finally learn Harry's off the hook. It's symbiogenesis. Yes. Thank God.

Thank God. Oh, and then you forgot one last thing. I was pissed off at you, by the way, dude. I was pretty much pissed at you. You know, you said it's good to go, and it wasn't. You combined them. Amen. I was pissed at me.

Okay? I was pissed at me. I don't blame you. Um, hey, don't forget, two bucks, two bucks, two bucks, two vicks, two bucks, two bucks, any look, any like, get two bucks. That's Robert Beltran's. That's Robert Beltran. Favorite line that we would. And he look, get two bucks. That's how you get a Belch. That's how you get a Chauta voice going. You get Tuvok. Um, so he, there is, uh, there's a Tuvix compliments Janeway, like Neelix does. That's how you get a Chiquette voice going. You get a Chiquette. Um, so he, there is, uh, there's a two fix compliments Janeway like Neelix does. And then remember how Ethan Phillips told us that he always, or at least maybe you told me that Ethan told you that he always played Neelix as if he had a crush on Janeway. And I'm almost wondering, did he pass that information on to Tom Wright? Oh, interesting. Maybe. Maybe. I know that I do remember Tom, as you said before we started watching, he had to do a lot of research. I think he did a lot of research. My memory is I watched this. I remembered Neelix, Ethan, and Tim sort of talking about this episode, because they didn't

have a lot to do in it. They had the one away mission scene and then the one sickbay scene and that was it. Even though it was very much about their characters. Right. So I think they weren't in them, but they had a vacation. They had a big vacation, but they did help Tom. I think they both I remember them talking to me about conversations they had with him. Let's go back to the briefing room. Yes. And my first note is, I never stand in the briefing room leaning against a chair like that. I think that's the only episode that I've ever, that you ever see Harry leaning against, Harry stands like he's at the, he's up at the view screen talking about stuff. I don't know. Do you think Cliff Ball sat there and said, Garrett, I need you to lean on this chair? I mean,

that's like, that's really, I don't know. Maybe you were, he's, maybe you leaned in and he's like, yeah, I like that leaning in, be intensity or something. Maybe it got sort of encouraged. Yeah, because it doesn't seem like something you normally do. Yeah. Yeah, or maybe like we were sitting down and he got sick of it. He was like, hey, let's change this up a little bit. Let's have a little different levels going on.

Everyone's always sitting down. Why don't you stand up on this? Why don't you lean on? Use the chair as your podium, you know? So it's different. It's different. I like it. Yeah, I think that sometimes on the bridge or in the briefing room

or some of our regular sets that we were in a lot, Sometimes directors would come in and just do things to be different just because, like, it wasn't necessarily about that particular scene or story or anything other than, let's just do something different in here. Yeah. Symbiogenesis is suggested by Tuvix, but of course he first belts out the word sex, like that, and then explains himself. And I'm going to tell you right now, please don't take offense. I am not a fan of Tom's hair in this briefing room. Really? I was going to say another great

hair day for Tom. Oh, no. Yeah, I was. It was kind of poofy. It was a lot of hair. No. It was 90s hair. Come on. No? No. I don't know. It was very poofy. It didn't have the whoopty-whoop. Sometimes I would have a whoop-dy-whoop.

Yeah, there was no whoop-dy-whoop. I like whoop-dy-whoop. Oh, you like whoop-y-wit. I like when there's a little bit of a, of, of a wave going on, like a wave in the ocean. I often have a wave, but this time, this was more of like a, this was more, I'm fair of faucet sort of. Don't get mad.

This was more Brillow pad, to me. It was like a cleaning pad-esque, and it just, it wasn't, I wasn't a fan of it. Okay. That's what I'm going to say. Okay. I, this is probably the only time I've ever noticed your hair looking like that. Interesting.

Ever. Yeah. So, and I thought it was a good hair day. You thought it was a good air date. We're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. We will. Okay. Tuvix invites Kess on a date. Yeah.

In the corridor. In the corridor. Yeah, invites him on a date or invites her on a date. To make trillion crapes. To make trillion crapes. But I noticed in that scene in the hallway that she seemed to make a shift from that sort of scared or, you know, dealing with her grieving. she seems to make a quick turn there and she sort of smiles

and then the next thing you know they're walking into the mess hall and she's laughing like she's giggling with him and I thought wow that was a quick turn yeah but when she walks up towards him though she kind of treats him just like a work person

or almost like an acquaintance not you know definitely not her partner right so she's sort of accepted the fact that okay this is it is what it is but this is definitely not my Nelik So I'm just going to talk to you like normal. And of course, once you gets in the mess hall, there's that crazy giggling scene. I wrote down, what an odd laugh to have.

It's just, why was that there? I don't know. Maybe you can explain it, but maybe it's just because the scene, you walk in and the mess hall is a mess. It's a complete mess. Hogan is trying to make his food. Everything's burning, right? It's just horrible. yeah it was and by the way you and i were extras in the scene sitting in the back i was like oh

that's weird that we're there you look so bored ravi i was looking at your face you just you're just like you're looking around like okay yes we were extras yeah i wish we had had some comments there i mean it's funny because later on and i don't mean this from a like an egotistical i wish i I had lines kind of place. Yeah. But I do feel like when we got to the end and Tuvix was sort of pleading on the bridge, you know, you're my, my colleagues. And he came down to Paris and he said, you're my friends.

And he looks at Paris and Paris sort of looked down. You look down. I know. You rebuked him. I rebuked him. Everyone rebuked him. It was a very awkward scene. No one.

Not me. Because I wasn't there. Yeah, that's true. But anyway, when he said that line. you're my friends I thought well I wish I'd seen that in this episode some I wish I had seen two vicks building more than just the Kess relationship but starting to build other relationships so that in this moment where we're like oh we've all sort of gotten to know this new guy and when he makes his big speech and walks around we he can bring up things that have

happened in this episode that's why I guess in the mess hall it would have been nice to have had us have some work not a ton of lines but i don't know anything anything yeah you know or or when he's cleaning up for us to be walking out and saying something nice about him to suggest that all of us are getting to know too vix um i think that would have helped well and it made the end even more tragic i guess yeah but i think that's what that one montage scene sort of served as oh my god that montage that's like that's true yeah this is the bonding because you see him sit down with Harry. There's no dialogue. It's just Janeway talking, right? Her voice, her VO, her voiceover, basically, talking about how, you know, guess what,

you know, his food is so much better than Neelix is. And guess what? He's figured, and then, you know, that's probably where the bonding is happening. That's true. I forgot about the montage, and that's very rare for us on our show. We don't do montage. We never did montages. That was very rare. Yeah. Hey, Garrett, have you been traveling this summer? Oh, my God. 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.

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There was a montage in there with Janeway doing all of her tests. But it was very rare. That was written into the script or that you actually. Yeah, that was written. That was written in. There was one of those pieces that I had pitched to them and we added. but otherwise that was all written yeah let's jump back really quickly so mess hall uh tomahary eating in the background tuvix places his hands on kesses and it's very awkward because she is definitely not

ready for this yeah then we jump to the next scene which is on the bridge uh janeway and chikote walk in and two vox is two vox i keep on it say two bucks two vix has been there since oh 400 hours he's been there since 4 a.m. And he solved the problem faster than Tuvok said it would take 10 days. 10 days. And Tuvix said, oh yeah, I'm done. It's done. He had a hunch is what he said. Yeah. So that's what made him solve the, I'm going to see if I can say this. He solved the proximity detector glitch in the security subroutine. There you go. So, and that was done way faster. So he's really fitting in. He's really fitting in. He's using the skills and the strengths of both Neelix and Tuvok to be

better, stronger, faster than both of them. Right. Right. And that bridge scene was great because for me it's just like, okay, Tuvok is so methodical, he's so vulcan. He knows that he's going to do A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H to figure out how to

solve this problem. And he has to do every single step to check where this problem is. But then because he has Neelix in him, and Neelix is a little bit more go with the flow, Neelix is like, hmm, my hunch is that it's probably C and that's all he works on C so he gets it done within six hours as opposed to 10 days right so yeah he's better for the merge the hybrid is a better person than the two separated

in a way right so yeah so now we're feeling we're feeling for we're now we're like okay we kind of like this guy we really do speaking of feelings uh we jump to the planet and who's there, but Tom and Balana. And I think that's maybe their first away mission alone together. Tom and Balana. No, no, there was no romance at all.

Excuse me, I handed her a flower right away. You're a flower. How much more romantic can you get? From the hydroponics Bay. Like, these are the flowers from the hydroponics Bay. Here, take it. Okay. All right. You see what you want to see?

I see what I want to see. I see work mission. You see romantic first date. Yeah. They're down there doing that. And then we go to the sick bay and we see that all these unscrambling experiments have failed. And it's going to be permanent. It's bad.

And Kess is in shock. That felt to me like, like, oh my gosh, Tim Russ and Ethan Phillips are going to be gone. Like, I really, of course, I know we did a lot more episodes with him. But in that moment, they sort of had me for a second. like they had me I was like this is really a sad moment it's permanent

yeah this was so sad and now we go to her lighting candles for Neelix and Tuval yeah I don't know if it's the script itself

because you know the whole montage with the Janeway voiceover talking about how much how much better this hybrid individual was

than the two of them separated yeah and then also just working with Tom Wright like off camera this guy was just

he was awesome to talk to consummate professional gentleman witty handsome guy you know like he had all these things going for him that i i got to be perfectly honest with you i was i shed a tear why can't we keep him why can't we keep this guy i think i i like tom right also but i wish there was a way that we could have like split him and would have been cool to have tom stay on as tuvix and somehow extract the DNA to recreate

both Tuvok and Neelix and now you've got this crazy weird mashup that's kind of better than both of them. I don't know. That could have been fun. And I agree with you. I like Tom. He was a good guy. All right. Let's continue. Okay.

All right, Bubba. Okay. So this is permanent and she's lighting a candle. She's grieving. And Tuvich comes in. And Tuvick says he loves her. He loves her. kisses her and and when he leaves she to me she seemed to swoon she seemed to be like oh the vapors the vapors you got the swoon i got the freak out i thought it was the freak out because

yeah i don't know it was it was like a dramatic sort of oh i thought it was the vapors i thought it was like okay it might be it might be she got swept up in the emotion of it probably but i really felt that confusion of it probably as well yeah because of that line that he says that he says that he said the doctor says it may take years to figure this out, how to get Tuvac and Neelix back, which may be a lifetime for you, is what he says. That is the extent of the Ocampon, you'll be dead, the Ocampon lifespan, right? And so she's like, oh, my God, a kiss, and then she freaks. And then she freaks.

Okay. You thought it was swooning. You thought it was swinging. I felt it was more freaked out. Well, she does go to Janeway's quarters to get some answers. Janeway gives a big speech about feeling disconnected to the one we love, and you can tell that she's really empathizing with Cass here. And I thought Kate did a really good job in that scene, actually.

I loved the way she played that scene with Cass. It felt very grounded and real and personal. And I did remember as we rewatch this episode, because my trailer was right by Kate's, and I would hear from her sometimes if she had strong feelings about episodes. and she really struggled with this episode. I remembered as we were watching it, I remembered how she was very worried about this episode as an actor

and for her character that this put her in a very, a very, you know, a no-win situation. And she was very concerned about it. So I thought the way she played that scene with cast in the quarters was very simple and very personal, very authentic. And I think it was the struggle she was trying to kind of understand and justify where the story was headed. And I think that's probably the most authentic that Janeway has been up to this point.

I mean, if you think about it, you know, she, the lines that she had. Yeah. And do we accept that we're separated from our loved ones forever? Or do we hold on to the hope that someday will be with them again? And then Kess asked her, well, how do you, how have you, you know, dealt with this? And she says that someday she's full of hope and optimism. Other days, she dreams about being with Mark. But when she wakes up and realizes that it's a dream,

she is terribly discouraged. And you don't hear Janeway talking like this. Yeah, it's a nice scene. Yeah, it's a great thing. We get our montage that we talked about, which is very rare for us, but I thought very well done. And I couldn't believe.

Like I said before, that Janeway takes a shot at Neelix's cooking. Yeah. My taste buds are definitely happy to have him around. Yes. Taste buds. All right. And now let's get to Harry practicing his clarinet. Wow. Oh, God. Wow. That was very impressive. That was a long sequence, a long sequence that you had to, we were, you were playing in sync to a recording of that. Yeah, the playback was done by my clarinet teacher. So it's his actual playback, but I am, I am, I am fingering all the notes correctly, you know, in sync in the correct timing, in sync. Like I said before, it was a very stressful time. Anytime I had to do a clarinet scene. I do not remember that I had a clarinet scene in this particular

episode, but obviously I did. But it just stressed me out because I'm not a clarinet player. And I wanted to make it look realistic to anybody watching who happens to play the clarinet or the saxophone. They would have known if I was faking it, you know, and really stressed out. Because while you guys are all just lounging in your trailer, I would have to sit there and learn this darn clarinet piece. But thank you for... I thought it was great. I thought it was really good. Thank you so much. The doctor calls in. He has a theory. Yes. And Kim is so excited. He runs down there and stops playing. That was me being excited to not having to play clarinet anymore. I was like, I'm going to run down to sickbay now. Bye. We jump to Sandrine's. Yeah, we go to Sandrine's. Tuvix is a pool shark, clearly. Yeah, he is clearly a pool shark. He's just better at everything than everybody. Kess shows up. Very awkward day. She says, ultimately, she says, I just want to be friends. and he's kind of disappointed. And she's like, and, you know, let our friendship grow.

Yeah, so she's willing to take it very slowly. Very slowly. And then he's like, yes, he's optimistic. Yeah, they hold hands without her freaking out. It's just friendship. It's just friendship. It's just we wanted to grow our friendship into more friendship. But friendship, friendship, friendship.

Yeah, that's what I kind of heard there. Well, I kept thinking, since he's so much better at pool, he's better at cooking, he's probably better at love making is what I thought I thought you know this might be an upgrade for Kess yeah yeah but then we've spoken before we don't even know if these two have ever even had any type of physical no we don't know intercourse we don't know that we don't we really don't we never will for sure um so we also find out after this that uh the doctor and harry have solved it they figured out how to do this isotope thing uh but we also see that Tuvix doesn't want to die. We realize that hits him in the scene. Yeah. Yeah. And that was jolting.

That was really jolting. Yeah. Because, you know, he's kind of sitting there and you just, he blurts it out. He goes, I don't want to die. And it just, that's when you start realizing this person is, is an individual separate from the other two. He totally has his own, you know, everything is, is different really. It's the same, but yet it's different. Yeah. Yeah. There was a Janeway line. I don't know if it was in a voiceover. I can't remember, but she said, at which point did he become an individual and not just a transporter accident. And I thought that was a very well-put line, you know, and a great Star Trek line, you know. It is. Then the arguing goes back and for the debate, you know, I'm the captain, so I should make this decision. Tuvix says, this is my life, so I should make my decision, this decision. Tuvix says, I keep wanting to say, Tuvok, what the

heck? Tuvick says that Janeway would be ordering an execution and that I have the right to live. Yeah, I thought it was interesting in that it was a great sort of almost a courtroom scene between Tuvix and Janeway, sort of arguing this logic war back and forth. And I thought, Tom, again, did a great job of bringing out kind of Tuvok's logic and intellect. And at times he needed it having Neelix sort of present himself and being very emotionally compelling. and so I thought Tom did a great job and the scene was well written.

It was great. Let's settle this right now. Yes. Tom Paris, Bolana, Bolana Harry Kim pairing. Now, if you, Tom and Bolana got merged in a transporter accident, you would be either Tallana or bomb.

Bomb. Now, if Harry and Balana got mixed in a transporter accident, it would be Halana or Barry. I think that's what that flows better. Barry or Halana more so than Talana or bomb, right? No, Tom and Balana are the bomb. You can't beat the bomb, baby.

All right, you guys are the bomb. Okay. Tuvix ends up asking Kess, like after this logic war in this debate with Janeway, he goes to Kess, which is just heartbreaking. Kess comes in, you know, to Janeway and just realizes that she breaks down. She has a great deep breakdown, and I know

that that had to have had an impact on Janeway's decision. Tuvix is back on the bridge. You have this moment of Janeway just sitting alone in her quarters or in her ready room, and then she gets up and starts to walk out and the end game begins and it's just heart it's heartbreaking you know tuvix is freaking out and running for his life and yeah he has to call security and um i i think that i guess for better or worse jane you know it's uh janeway realized the importance of what

she was deciding to do and her decision and all and took full responsibility did the procedure herself. She does every, you know, the doctor says I'm a, I'm a doctor. I cannot do something to cause harm that would kill Tuvix. And so she says, give me the, you know, give me the injection. She does the injection. She does the procedure. It was just heartbreaking. It was really sad. Really, really sad. And by the way, and then when it, when it does start, they start the medical transport or whatever, surgical transport, it almost looked for a minute, like there might be three of them, you know, there was like Tuvix is sitting in the middle and then the other two start coming on the side. And then it's like, wait, is there going to be all three of them? Is there going to be

maybe there's going to be three Tuvok's or maybe there's going to be three, like they're going to end up with a wrong combo. It's like a shell game of what's, what are you going to end up with? Well, yeah, but we almost got what we wish for, which is both Tuvok and Neelik's back and Tuvok sitting in the middle. I want to give a shout out to when back on the bridge when Tuvok, after Tuvok has had the debate with Janeway, he goes on the bridge, he goes to the tactical station, and he relieves the individual at Tactical, who is one of our longtime background actors, and that's Louis there. And I just remember while I'm watching that, like, Megan was like, who's that?

I go, that's Louis. He has to act for a minute. Louis had to, like, stop and look at Pote and, like, what am I going to do? Okay. Yeah. And I wasn't sure about, like, oh, I was. was just watching Janeway on the bridge as she's standing behind Tuvix who's starting to freak out and plead to everybody. And she's just giving this, it's just a very kind of evil looking look.

Oh, it's cold. It's so, it's like, you're still going to the death, you know, chamber, the gas chamber kind of a thing. And it was really, I just don't know if there was another way that that could have been conveyed or or how that could have transpired, you know, or she could have chose some other way of acting that particular. Yeah, reaction, because that bugged me. I didn't like that look on Janeway. Well, she was determined to like,

this was not easy for her clearly and she was determined to see it through. Right, but it didn't look like she had any humanity at that point, though, right? There wasn't any struggle. The only struggle I saw is after she leaves sickbay, after the deed is done, they're separated. You see her break down for a split second there.

and she grieves about what she did and maybe has second thoughts and that's the only time that she showed her humanity like but on the bridge she was you know but maybe that's the way she had to be as the captain she had to make the decision and get it done right and so she had to be cold but it bugged me i don't like seeing janeway cold like i know i agree it was hard to watch it was hard to see i think they put kate mulgrew in a very tough position for this character to yeah have to play this story it was a uh a lose lose what kind of lesson do you think do you think that you could extract from this episode? I think the two kind of themes or lesson that I took from this is one,

sometimes there aren't any winners. That was one lesson for me. In some situations, there is no winning choice. And the other lesson for me is leadership is hard. What Janeway decided to do, no one else was in the position to do, and I don't know if anyone else could have done it. It was a very hard thing to be done. And she did it.

Leadership is hard. Well, said. I agree with you on both points. Nice. Awesome. Well, that was fun. It wasn't fun, actually. It was tough.

But I'm glad. That's your normal response at the end of all our podcast. That was fun. Then you're like, no, that really wasn't fun. That one wasn't so fun. Yeah, that one was difficult. Fascinating to watch. And my memory was definitely cleared up on a lot.

of things that because I thought I knew more about that episode than I did so yeah great to watch agreed and like I said before it ended so abruptly she leaves sick bay and it's done that episode is done run the credits and it was like give me a little bit more but hey guys we're really lucky to have writer Lisa clink to answer a fan question regarding Tuvix one question Lisa that the fans had was is a very controversial episode. It was especially damaging to the character of Janeway. Were there any worries about how the audience would judge Janeway? Obviously, it's a moral conundrum. I mean, we really wanted to make it as difficult a decision as possible. And by doing that, we knew that whichever decision she made, somebody would disagree with it, you know, which is, which is fine, actually.

I mean, she doesn't have to be, you know, not everybody has to love her in every, every minute of the day. You know, we really wanted this to be thought provoking. yeah do you think there was any um difference in the decisions they made about things we really tried not to have that make any difference whatsoever as opposed to a male captain

you know we like even during the show and so we were writing the scripts you know people never draw attention to it you know it's in that universe it's not unusual it's not notable in any way right right right yeah it's funny because my memory um about kate as an actress when she was doing the show was

she was very aware constantly that this was the first female captain addressing this issue you know whatever the episode issue was in this case right sacrificing a life for two others um so i i think you know my memory of kate is she always sort of she always filtered it through at least not just the lens of she's a Star Trek captain and the authority that that has and all of the the angles that that might you know bring up but she also filtered it through the the idea that she was a female captain and and that there might be you know she would at least question like is there an angle in my performance that I can bring that would be a uniquely female right experience or a perspective or you know perhaps

I certainly remember that as an actress, but it sounds like they tried not to, like they're right from a writer place. Yeah, we definitely, because again, because again, we were sort of imagining this great future in which there are an equal number of female and male captains. And so it really, you know, would not be unusual at all. Right. Yeah, it's funny. I was, you know, this idea of capital punishment or death or saccharacterial. sacrificing a life. You know, I was just talking with somebody on another podcast about how sci-fi and Star Trek in particular is so uniquely suited for looking at these questions

in sort of their purest form. Yeah, no, I agree that Trek and sci-fi in general is a really good way to look at moral issues because you can take it out of the specifics of a contemporary issue and look at it more in a general, you know, theoretical kind of point of view. because we're never going to have to make the actual decision that Janeway made in this episode. But the issues surrounding it, you know, are very relevant. Yeah. All right, guys. Thank you so much for tuning in.

Join us next week. Thank you. Next week will be, Robbie and I will be reviewing the episode Resolutions. Resolutions will be the episode of re-review. And for all of our Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material. You know, B. B.

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