The Delta Flyers - Unimatrix Zero Part I

Episode Date: February 20, 2023

The Delta Flyers is a weekly Star Trek: Voyager rewatch & recap podcast hosted by Garrett Wang & Robert Duncan McNeill. Each week Garrett and Robert will rewatch an episode of Voyager starting at the very beginning. This week’s episode is Unimatrix Zero Part I. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.Unimatrix Zero Part I:Janeway and Seven of Nine act to instil independent thought in the Borg Collective when an enclave of drones reaches a dream-fantasy state that weakens it.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise & Rebecca McNeillAnd a special thanks to our Ambassadors, the guests who keep coming back, giving their time and energy into making this podcast better and better with their thoughts, input, and inside knowledge: Lisa Klink, Martha Hackett, Robert Picardo, Ethan Phillips, Robert Beltran, Tim Russ, Roxann Dawson, Kate Mulgrew, Brannon Braga, & Bryan FullerAdditionally 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, Daniel de Rooy, Chris Knapp, Michelle Z, Janet K Harlow, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Courtney Lucas, Matthew Gravens, Elaine Ferguson, Brian Barrow, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Heidi Mclellan, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, John Espinosa, Deike Hoffmann, Mike Gu, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Vikki Williams, Kelly Brown, Lee Lisle, Mary Beth Lowe, William McEvoy, Sarah Thompson, Samantha Hunter, Holly Smith, Amy Tudor, Adm. Bill "Seoulman" Yu, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Ashley Stokey, Lori Tharpe, Mary Burch, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Dominique Weidle, Lisa Robinson, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Alex Mednis, AJ Freeburg, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Barbara S., Tim Beach, Ariana, Meg Johnson, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, Holly Schmitt, James H. Morrow, Christopher Arzeberger, Megan Chowning, Tae Phoenix, Nicole Anne Toma, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Daniel O’Brien, Bronwen Duffield, Brandon May, Andrew Duncan, David Buck, Jeremy Mcgraw, Jason Bonnett, Ali S, Danie Crofoot, Ian Ramsey, Feroza Mehta, Michael Dismuke, Jonathan Brooks, Gemma Laidler, & Rob TraverseAnd our Producers:James Amey, Patrick Carlin, Richard Banaski, Ann Harding, Ann Marie Segal, Chloe E, Nathanial Moon, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Jocelyn Pina, Mike Schaible, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Matthew Cutler, Maxine Soloway, Barbara Beck, Species 2571, Aithne Loeblich, Dat Cao, Scott Lakes, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Tara Polen, Jenna Appleton, Jason Potvin, Cindy Ring, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, Jamason Isenburg, Mark G Hamilton, Rob Johnson, Maria Rosell, Heather Choe, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Jennifer Jelf, Justin Weir, Mike Chow, Rachel Shapiro, Eric Kau, Captain Jak Greymoon, David Wei Liu, Clark Ochikubo, David J Manske, Roxane Ray, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, E.G. Galano, Cindy Holland, Will Forg, Max Wilson, Ryan Tomei, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Russell Nemhauser, Lawrence Green, Christian Koch, Lisa Gunn, Lauren Rivers, Shane Pike, Jennifer B, & Dean ChewThank you for your support!“Our creations are protected by copyright, trademark and trade secret laws. Some examples of our creations are the text we use, artwork we create, audio, and video we produce and post. You may not use, reproduce, distribute our creations unless we give you permission. If you have any questions, you can email us at [e-mail].”Our Sponsors:* Check out Mint Mobile: https://mintmobile.com/TDFSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Greetings, everyone, welcome to the Delta Flyers with Tom and Harry as we journey through episodes of Star Trek Voyager. Your two hosts along this journey are my fellow Voyager actor who played the role of Commander Ellis Ward in the 2002 Outer Limits episode, The Human Factor, Mr. Robert Duncan McNeil, and myself, your favorite for ever instance, Garrett Wong. Remember, you can get the full version of this podcast by signing up to become a patron at patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers. Wow. I've been watching Downton Abbey, so that's what that was. Yeah. I was going with Ryan Reynolds and spirited when he's saying the good afternoon. Yeah. Good afternoon. I love that song. Yes. I finally saw it, by the way. Oh, so funny. It is so funny. For those of you haven't seen it, This is a movie with Ryan Reynolds and who's the other lead?

Will Farrell. Will Farrell. And it's the modern day, well, it's another interpretation of the Dickens' Christmas story, basically. Christmas Carol, right? Yeah, yeah. Very, very funny. My gosh, you were right. This is going to be a favorite for yours.

It's going to be a holiday tradition for sure. I love it. You know what's interesting? Because like last episode we did, we had talked about that was your last credit. But yet this one popped up. right after the prior one. So my question to you is, is this indeed the final,

final one? I feel like I did this before Voyager ended. Weird. I feel like for sure I must have done this before Voyager ended. Yeah. Okay. During a hi-aid, it was another situation during a hi-it-is.

Maybe they didn't come out for a couple years. Maybe they kept in the can. It was in the can sitting there waiting. And finally they released it in 2002. but that's how we're credits for 2002. Oh, that's funny. Yeah. Huh.

Yeah, I think I did it. I think I must have done. I don't know when I did it. I, you were, you were starting the credit and you were like, played the role of Ellis somebody. Commander Ellis Ward. And I was like,

I did? Who was that? I thought you have no clue. You have no memory of this. It was, it was a weird episode. It was one of those bottle shows where, but what was,

It was the Outer Limits. Not the Twilights, Outer Limits. You did Twilight Zone early in your career. I did. You end, you bookend your career. You start with Twilight and you end with Outer Limits, essentially. Which are two amazing shows, by the way. Outer Limits was an anthology show, I think on Showtime back then.

So it was on one of the cable networks. Yeah, it was on one of the cable networks. And it was an anthology show. They had had a lot of famous people do. outer limits, cool stories. And then they called me and they said, well, this isn't an unusual one for us because it's kind of our bottle show. We're going to shoot the whole thing in two, three days. Wow. Maybe two days. Oh, my gosh. And what we're going to do is we've set up a story where you, it's just you and a robot, an android, like data or something. Oh, my gosh. And you're

on a moon base or some, some call in a space colony. And the Android has been killing all of the humans because he thinks they're a danger and you're trying to convince him not to kill all the humans so you're playing a game of chess and talking about why you know humans need to be saved need to be saved and he's destroying this moon call or this planet colony which is all humans will need this colony because they're going to die on earth because earth so it's a clip show, basically is what I'm getting it. So we talk about, you know, well, humans have empathy and they care about each other. And then it would go to another episode, a clip from another episode of Outer Limits.

Yeah. And show some story about empathy. And then they come back to us playing chess talking about. And the robot would say, no, they're selfish. Humans are selfish. And then it would go to a clip from another show. So it was almost like these highlights of other Outer Limits episodes. within this story of so should humans live or die so what you're saying is they were taking

footage from other episodes and so not only was this a bottle show this was the uber of bottle shows oh my gosh reusing footage that was already um filmed oh my gosh yes and it was there was more than us just playing chess there was a chase scene i remember in a tunnel but it was pretty it was a pretty simplistic two or three days of scenes, maybe two days. I can't remember. It wasn't long. But from your story, it sounds like this was an offer and not an audition. Yeah, it was an offer, I think.

Okay. Had you worked with the producer prior to this? Is this why you received this offer? No. It was just off of the greatness of Robert Duncan McNeil. They were like, you know what? I guess so. I don't know.

So you don't remember if anyone. I don't know. Yes, ma'am. Okay. so all right we'll go with that the writer of that show his name was grady hall and he and i hit it off and we are still friends to this day really yeah the writer of your episode or the or one of the writer producer the writer of that episode he had come up to produce you know to be the writer on set and we just hit it off and stayed in touch when we got back home and we've been in touch for years you know he's

he's become uh he became a commercial director music video director he won a bunch of mtv music Awards as a as a music video director he's produced some other TV shows and become a director that was really what he wanted I think the writing was a path towards that so not a very common name Grady Hall yeah isn't Grady the name of the character one of the characters in Samford and Son the friend of Sanford maybe I don't remember I think there was but I love Sanford and son it was good show yeah that's good show well let's talk about our show okay let's talk about our show enough about other TV shows and other people's careers let's talk about us all right so this week's episode is the season finale yeah for season six yes we're here we're actually here

it's so crazy i mean if you think about this we started this and we launched in may i mean this really we started recording in march of 2020 but we launched in may of 2020 and here we are over two years later and we're at the end of season six we're going to be three years in may It's unbelievable. Wow. Okay. Unimatrix Zero, part one. So this is a two-parter.

Okay. And I'm looking forward to seeing this. And I can't believe how far we've come. It's been a journey. Truly. Yes, it has. All right, everyone. Robbie and I are going to watch this episode, and we will be right back for all of our Patreon patrons.

Please stay tuned for your bonus material. Hello, everyone. We're back. Yes, we are. Well, we're back, but we don't know how it ends. we're back but hey we don't have any answers for you yeah but your made-up synopsis was on point it is kind of like the matrix okay it is kind of like the matrix a and i got kudos on guessing correctly allan oh yeah i got that one right yeah cricka cracka or cricker as we mispronounce it but yeah i got that right and you got uh brandon and joe writers at the teleplay rick berman is not involved which no berm is not in part of it No. I'm shocked.

You thought for sure he would be part of the premieres in the finale. He's always got his name on there somehow, like story or something. Yeah. Maybe he was, you know, too busy prepping something else or working on one of the movies or. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Yeah. Yeah, true. Okay, here we go.

Here we go with our poetry synopsis of the episode Unimatrix Zero part one. Can't wait. Can't wait. Here we go. My haiku for Unimatrix Zero part one. Unimatrix null A sanctuary for drones Keith paid overtime

I knew you would like that okay we see Keith over and over again was my stand-in but he also had a Borg he had done Borg stuff for the movies and for our show so they had a mold from my standing Keith right and once you have a mold

it's drop security you're going to work You're going to work. And you're going to work long, long hours because you're going to make overtime. The application and the taking off of the makeup itself puts you into overtime. And then if you're working the next day, it's a forced call. So they're getting more money that way. It just keeps on going. It just keeps adding up.

The other noticeable drones that I saw, I saw Tom Morga a few times. So our stuntman, one of our regular stunt persons. Did you see Sue? Sue was a Borg? Yes, she was a Borg. Was she in the very opening scene? Was she the shorter one? Is she the shorter one?

It was Sue. That was Sue. I didn't know that. I think so. Okay. That's awesome. And also John Tempoya. I did see one appearance of John Tempoya as a Borg too.

All right, let's hear your. My Limerick for Unimatrix, Zero, Part 1. Seven Dreams. She's in a virtual Borg zone where her true self is very well-known. own. Janeway decides to save them all. She risks the Voyager's downfall. Good luck because now she's a drone. You're a limerick smith now. Yeah, wordsmith, a limerick smith. Or you could be wordsmith too as a limerick writer too. Thank you. Wow. So our guest stars, we've got Mark Deacons is axiom the romantic borg that loves seven the handsome alien himself yes so as most people that

listen to this podcast know i live in utah one thing that jumped out at me when i looked up mark deacons um you know credits and things was he went to b y u university right down yeah b yu right down the road yeah and his first job was a mormon film called How Rare a Possession the Book of Mormon in 1987. So it was, I guess, a Mormon historical kind of film. Interesting. About the factual accounts of Vincenzo di Francesca as he came to know the contents of the Book of Mormon. So it's some history movie.

But that was his first job. Maybe while I was at BYU or something, he did this movie. Next one is Jerome Butler, who plays Kaurak, the Klingon. Klingon guy, yeah. Yes. Jerome Butler. So his first job was some movie called People in 1993. Not sure what the plot of that is.

Don't know if I want to know people. But anyway, it's maybe a horror film. I don't know. What year? What year was that? 1993. Okay, 93. So what is interesting about his Jerome Butler's career, he's most.

mostly made his living as a dialogue coach. So he works on big movies, big shows. He's got dozens and dozens of credits as a dialogue coach, meaning what that job does, we didn't have one on, most shows don't have a dialogue coach. But it's someone whose job is to run lines with the actors, to make sure the actors are always prepared. They're ready to go.

And ready to go. And a lot of shows have that position to run lines, you know, while they're lighting and things like that. We didn't have that on a Voyager. Have you been on a show before Voyager that had that? Yes. Only one that I can think of. Which one was that?

It was Homefront. And it was a World War II set TV show. And they wanted the dialogue to be, they didn't want any riffing or improvy, like contemporary slang or anything. So they wrote it very consciously in the speech patterns and dialect of the 1940s. And they wanted all the actors. you know, sharp on that. So we had a dialogue coach. So that one person would assist every actor on set for the day, correct?

Yeah. And that's Jerome's mostly. That's his biggest. That's his main. Yeah, he's done that. Yeah. The majority of his resume is as dialogue coach. Yeah.

Yeah. Did you do anything else? Star Trek wise? I don't think so. I don't have that note. I don't think so. That's all right. Okay.

Next. Laura, our visitor, our board visitor in the virtual place, who was from Wolf, she was assimilated with during the Battle of Wolf 359. Yes. Her name, Laura, the character Laura, was played by Joanna Heimbold. And her first job was in 1994 on Law and Order. She played Melody Carter. So that leads me to believe she was a New York based actor.

Law and Order was every actor in New York. law and order back in the day. And she was also married to, what's his name, Titus Welliver, who was in the guest start on our show. They were married. They were not married. At this particular time? I don't know if it was during this.

Well, probably. That sounds about right. Probably. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, I thought that was a nice little thing. Can we just stop for one second? Can we go back to the Klingon?

Is he credited as the snagletooth cling on? I'm just curious. No, but I love that snaggle tooth. Just the one. Just the one coming out. I know. I thought it was a toothpick when he first came on screen. I thought it was super cool.

Being a little contemporary with a little toothpick. Very unusual. I don't recall a lot of Klingons with the snagel teeth. With just one. Yeah, one canine and the other one that's not even existed. Yeah. Okay. All right.

Continue. Sorry. Okay. Guestar Susanna Thompson played our Borgue. Phenomenal. She's so good. Great job. But isn't that the same name as the singer from the Bengals?

Susanna Hoffs Oh it's okay I thought it was same name Susanna Thompson plays the board queen Yes Her first job was in 1991 She was in the pilot

Of the famous TV show Silk stalking Oh That was a USA Network show Yeah Her very first job was a pilot And it went to series For a few years

And so she was a series regular Is what you're saying I don't think so I think she was a guest star in the pilot Ah okay All right Well, yeah, you're right. She did a great job.

And now we know there's two individuals or two actors that played that role. Alice Krieg and Susanna Thompson. Yeah, exactly. We had a couple other co-stars, Tony Sears as the Borg Drone. This is interesting. Oh, he's the one that speaks. Yes. Which was so crazy, you know, to hear him hear a Borg Dron speak.

But here's what else is crazy about Tony Sears. Well, a couple things. First of all, I found out from Utah. No. No. He went to the University of Georgia. Go dogs. Go dogs. Okay. Not BYU, but University of Georgia. Went to the University of Georgia, so go dogs. And he was our art department coordinator on Voyager. Excuse me. He worked in the crew. Come again. What? He was, yeah, he worked upstairs in the art department, which was above our stage. Say his name again. What is it again? Tony Steers. Sears like the department store, S-E-A-R-S. Yes. Yes. So he's. So he,

he's a co-worker of ours, essentially. I mean, the art department worked upstairs. We didn't meet a lot of them. You know, Richard James or a designer. We met a few of them, but not many. But he worked, yeah, and he has a lot of other acting credits, by the way. But he worked, he just worked in all kinds of jobs in the film business. Okay, so he worked in art department.

And they cast him in this role, which is so bizarre, because now I'm thinking about if Michael Okuda or Denise Okuda We're actually in Borg as, you know, a Borg's get up as well. How did, I don't, I have no, I feel like how that happened. Marvin Rush would have been a good board. Marvin would be a wonderful board. Yeah. He would be, he would be good.

But Billy Pets, our Billy Pets are lighting, our gaffer, Billy would have been a good cling on. We're going to go through everybody's, we can't go through the whole crew. Chacho, Johnny would have been a good, Melon, one of the garbage scow people, right? But how do you think that happened? I mean, do you think they sat around? And they thought, hey, the actor that was supposed to play this role dropped out.

Do you have anyone in the art department that would like to be an actor for the day? I don't think so. Here's what I think happened. Yes. Tony Sears wanted to be in showbiz and he hustled. He worked a lot of jobs I saw on his resume. Okay. And he was, he wanted to be an actor, but he, you know, between acting opportunities,

took jobs in the film business. ended up in our art department yeah and probably went and said to somebody hey can i leave my resume for casting because i'm really an actor i don't want to be an art department coordinator right you know uh okay sitting at a desk doing people's schedules that's basically what that coordinator does yeah um so he got his resume in because he was in the art department he probably got his resume in there that's my wow yeah that's really interesting okay his first um his first job was in 1989 he had the role of Harry Dugan

in The Return of Swamp Thing with Heather Locklear was in this movie, yeah that sounds like a trauma film right there. Doesn't it? It sounds a little wow, a little fun Swamp Thing. That's Tony Sears. Last one

we've got here, guest are the alien kid. Yeah, the young boy. The work kid, yep. Ryan Sparks played the alien child. His first job was 1997 on the TV series JAG, which was also a Paramount show. Yes, it was. And I noticed with Ryan the kid, he was on a lot of Paramount shows back in the late 90s, mid-late 90s through the early 2000. Wonder if he had a relative there.

Yeah. It sounds like somebody, yeah. It sounds like Sparks is his made-up name and his real last name is McCluggage. McCluggage. Yes. Ryan McCluggage. Sparks, a.k.a. Sparks. But he doesn't continue, though, right? I mean, he just kind of acts as a kid and that's done, right? He doesn't have a much resume. I think he acted into the late 2000, like, really? As a teenager and a young adult, probably. But I don't think he's continuing to act at this. Yeah. I couldn't find anything.

Oh, there you go. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Let's just jump right into this, Robbie. Let's just jump in. We see an exterior space shot of a Borg cube traveling through what looks like Borg. Borg. headquarters. It looks like this is a lot of borg stuff going. They talked to about it later as the Unicomplex. Okay, it's called the Unicomplex. It's a lot of Borg vessels kind of tied in together. But yes, we see this queue. We see this cute kind of traveling through. Massive visit effects, which then changes into a camera panning across different drones in their regeneration alcoves into it. Find it lands on one specific drone. The camera then goes in close up onto this drone. eye, which then starts going through rapid eye movement, the REM sleep

movement, and the drone's eye opens up, and it is now escorted to the Queen's Chamber. And now we see the Queen, and look at all the visual effects that are going on in this scene. Cool assembly of the Queen. Super cool assembly of the Queen. I think

they took the first contact bit, and they even, I won't say this was a better sequence, but it was equally as complex. Really good for television. am i great am i right oh yeah tv absolutely it looked wonderful good job agreed so we see her getting assembled as she goes to meet this drone as being escorted and she's basically she's worried about some kind of malfunction that's spreading through the collective yeah she tells this one drone she

says you have this mutation or she says you have a disease is what how she words it to begin with and she says she wants to find a different way to identify the drones that have this mutation because Because it could take hundreds of years to really figure out what's going on. It's just a very lengthy process. So the key thing that this Queen, Borg Queen needs is the interlink frequency. Yes, that is what is the interlink frequency. Yeah. All these malfunctioning drones share this frequency.

It binds them together, she says. And he doesn't know what the heck she's talking about. He's like, huh? And so she disconnects him from the hive mind, which he's clearly, clearly lost and annoyed by or really uncomfortable with what's happening with not being connected. And he's making all the move. So Mr. Sears, our art department employee, is now doing his best acting of uncomfortability. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, which he did a good job, you know, and she says, well, okay, I need this information. And he says he doesn't know. He actually speaks because now once you are not connected to the hive mind, you cannot speak telepathically. You must speak using your mouth. and he does. He says he doesn't know. He doesn't know. I don't remember.

I don't know. And by the way, he speaks English with his mouth, which I think is so cool that Borgs all speak English. Well, you know, that's typically what happens. Whenever the Tlepth, he goes down, English is the default language for all Borgs. It would have been funny if it was Swedish because it would have. Borg is like a, you know, Borg is the Swedish last name. So, yeah, would have been better as Scandinavian. But okay.

Yeah, but she disconnect. him. He says he doesn't remember and she says deactivate him. And we think they're going to kill him. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Have him dismantled. I want to take a look at his cortical array. Bring me that cortical array. Bring me his head. Yeah. So basically she says dismember the dude. You know, so kill him. In the beginning, deactivate means kill. And dispantal also means kill, but even more killing is happening is what it is. It's a tough thing for the Sad. Very sad. Very sad. Forest area.

Yeah. Then we go to seven is walking through this forest area. Outdoors. Immediately, I was like, is this a dream? Yeah. Because she's wearing. It doesn't have any away mission supplies. I'm like, this isn't real. No.

It felt like a dream immediately. Yeah, but it's nice. It's tranquil. Very pretty, beautiful. Yeah. She sees some aliens, different species all walking together. As friends, talking. As friends.

But one disappears. One of them just. Yeah. it's like it beams out it's very weird and then she hears someone call onica and she sees uh she reaches out actually at this point we don't even see she looks and she starts to reach towards where we heard someone call onica and then she wakes up in her alco oh no we actually see him though for i don't think in this one we do because he tries to touch her oh that's right yeah he comes over with his hand to his cheek we were like what is he going to slap her is he going to touch her

caress her. Yeah, he reaches out. Yeah, she turns away, and that's when she wakes up from that regeneration song. So she does see, she does see our guest star from BYU. And now we're in sick bay, and the doctor is scanning her. And he is so excited because he thinks that she has experienced another milestone, her first dream ever. Congrats on your first dream.

Congratulations, yes. And, you know, she basically says, I just don't want to go through this dream process. No, this is a malfunction. Yeah, this is something wrong. I don't want it. Yeah, I'm broken. And he goes, no, no, it's natural. And then, you know, at the end of the scene, he basically gives her this tiny little

device. And he says, okay, you got to put this on your neck. And then this will record your REM cycles. So this is what I'm going to do this. Yeah. He does say something in the middle. He says, tell me about your dream. And she says, well, I saw a man.

Yeah. And he called me by my name. And he's like, oh, a man. Wow. Well, maybe, maybe it's a hidden desire. Oh, yeah, yeah. Trying to be released. Maybe it's a father figure or a desire to have male companionship.

So it gets a little creepy a little bit, you know. But at the very end, he says, take this tiny box and this will help you record your REM cycles. But it is interesting that he tries to interpret the dream, and he's kind of right in a way, because we'll find out later that there is some connection between this, some romantic connection between them. He is kind of right.

He is kind of right. He is a little right. He's on top. target there. But he does, yeah, he gives her this technology, put this on your neck. It'll basically record your dreams. Yes. Exterior space shot of Voyager traveling at impulse. And then now we show a bridge scene, a wonderful bridge scene. Mr. Paris is a little bit tardy for his duty shift by 22 seconds. Two bucks says 22 seconds late and everyone is really pissed off. Well, they're just super serious is what it is. That's what I wrote down. I don't know if they're pissed. It seems like

It seems like he's in trouble. It does seem like, Jacote and Jay and are the parents, yes, and you're the kid and you're the teenager and you're in trouble, kind of. Yes, you're right. I like Tom's attitude of like, you guys are overreacting.

I'll stay 22 seconds at the end of my shift. Calm down, everybody. Yes, yes. I like that line. I did like that line. You come down to your station. You notice there's a tiny box on your chair. And guess what?

It's promotion time. You're no longer in Ensign. You're going to pop back up to lieutenant. wait a minute now let's just pause for a minute why why is okay it makes no sense oh well let's just start from the very beginning you are not even in starfleet when we find you you're in the penal colony so you're a prisoner you're an observer so you should have zero rank to begin with right and so then why on god's green earth is tom paris being reprimoted to a rank that he shouldn't have even had in the first place and and for no apparent reason no apparent reason it was so bizarre i feel like i i thought

it was an odd thing to do. I don't think anybody should be promoted unless it's earned within the story. And it felt like doing this. I don't think you should, you know, anybody should get a promotion. It shouldn't happen in the beginning of the episode like this. Correct? Yeah. So it's not even earned. You're right. You're right. That's a very, very valid point. But I did make a note in my line. I didn't notice a little box in my chair. It should have been under my breath. Because the way it came off to me, it was way too good natured, you know, I mean, because if anything, Harry would be the one thinking,

good grief, why haven't I been promoted, you know? I mean, so it would have been like, well, I didn't notice a little box of my chair. Like, it looked kind of under the breath like that, right? But the other weird thing in this scene is, Torres shows up next to you after the promotion. She congratulates you

and you give her this weird friendly peck on the cheek. It's like, what do you, was that a... I think it must have been because we're on the bridge. Because you're at work and it would be weird to have a peck on the on the lips then, you think? I think so. Okay. So you're trying to be professional is what that was. I think so. Because to me, it bothered me. I thought, no, I want to see, I want to see some real sugar. That's like, that's like sugar you give for your grandma. Like, well, what does? I want to see

Paris. It was a little, it was a little professional. We're at work, though. Yeah, but we're at work in the freaking Delta Quadron. We may not even make it back to Earth. You should have just French kissed her right then. I think that would have been, yes, that might have been a little. awkward that might have been a little awkward it would have been like a big red commercial it did seem a little it did seem a little formal i i will give you that i made the same note but but wouldn't that have been a funny scene if jane way chikote are just sitting there waiting for you guys to finish kissing they're just like and then we cut to another scene we come back you know you cut to a big red commercial is what you got to and yeah and we cut to and they come back they're still kissing

but a little too stuffy for me all that excitement happens all of those deep feelings for you and I. There's an alert. Yeah. And Paris responds, oh, is that a cake, a hidden cake? I like that line. That was a good line. It was good.

And but no, it's not a cake. No. It's a distress call from a colony on an asteroid, a couple of light years away. Right. And Tuvok can't pick up any other transmission from the colony. No, nothing. We try to contact them, nothing. And we don't know it's a colony yet.

We learn that later. Yeah. We do. But we just hear this distress call. And Janeway, of course, always ready to help. Lays in a course, change our course. Let's head over to this distress call. We go to warp.

We go out to space. We see this ship flying by at warp. And we jump to our arrival at this asteroid. And as it sort of spins around, it reveals that the colony has been destroyed. You can see these structures and they're just blown out. No life signs. No. Sad.

And there's a profile shot of Harry. saying, I'm detecting residual weapons signatures, their Borg. I'm just going to say right now, this is the best profile hair look for Harry. Oh, wow. In the entire seven years, so far. Interesting. And there might be one better in season seven, but so far up to this point. Oh, it looked great.

I was so excited. I was like, yes, that's how Harry's hair should look on the side. Wow. Yeah, just give you a little tidbit. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yes. Yeah.

So Harry finds the Borg weapon signatures. and Tuvok scans and finds a Borg cube on the edge of the system. That's right. That's where that's the offending party. We're going to assume. We're assuming that. And so Janeway wants blood. She's like, I don't think, does she?

Why was she heading over there then? No. She was like, no, I'm going to, she sits there and says, I'm going to make them for the record. We came to this place. There was zero life signs. It was Borg, blah, blah, blah. We're heading on. Oh, let's.

Let's get out of here. Yeah, she goes, let's get out of here. Go get them. Heck no. She didn't care about that. She was like, no, we're done. Yeah. So she was like, lay in a course, resume course, I think is what she says.

Oh, that's right. Let's get out of here. Yeah, she didn't want to deal with the Borg. She's like, sorry for these people. Like, I would have helped if you were still alive, but. But you know, Janeway is just chomping at the bit to go head to head with the board. You know she is. No, she doesn't.

I don't think so. I'm a disagree with you. I think she wants to stay as far away as possible. Okay. So now we're in the cargo bay. She's going to get real close to the board by the end of this episode. She will get very, very close. You'll get closer than you can imagine.

Have you ever thought about this? Okay, so we're over at Seven of Nine's Regeneration Alcove, which is in the cargo bay. Yeah. But if you think about this, essentially seven sleeps in the garage or a storage shed is what she sleeps in. So why doesn't she have quarters? I have no idea. We've had so many people die. on this show.

I'm sure there's vacant quarters absolutely. Everywhere. So I'm a little, you know, it's just another symbol that she's not a part of the, like she's,

she's, you know, not fully committed to being a member of the crew. I think so. It's a reminder that she's different, that she's like, she's not going to,

you know. But just let's put it into context here. But it makes no sense. It'd be like if they stored stuff in Paris's quarters and people just ran walked in any time of the day to grab it while you're sleeping because that's what happens if she's in the cargo bay yeah there's a boxes and all kinds of things it's so weird i don't know that just

it's just one of those things where you know when you're sitting there and you're driving and you think you think of a word you're like steering wheel that's a really weird where it just it just you know up until that point you never think steering wheel sounds weird but then all the sudden it's weird so today's the day i thought why is seven sleeping in the cargo bay that's all yeah well especially because she's supposed to be having these dreams and like it's her dream time. Yeah. She's starting to have dreams now.

Yeah. And people are walking in, clanging around, you know, getting a hammer out of the box and things like that. Getting a hammer. Yes. Yes. Taking the trash out. Whatever they do.

So whatever you do in the garage. The trash bag rips, things start falling out. Like, you know, a tin can. That's where they keep the recycling is in that cargo bay. The recycling's in that cargo bay. So anyway, she's putting on the little device the doctor gave her earlier. Yes. about to regenerate. And so now the camera moves in a close-up on her eyes, moving rapidly.

She's experiencing rapid eye movement. And now she's in the forest. She's magically transported. And the first thing she sees is a cling on in the forest. Yeah. Well, the first thing we notice is it's nighttime now. And I kept thinking like, okay, if this is the sanctuary for the Borg, wouldn't it be daytime always? I mean, why would there be a nighttime? And I realized later, it's because once, you know, something happens later we need to be able to see the little laser beams and blippy blips of org drones and you can't see them so well during the day but yes a hand touches her on the shoulder and she turns to see it's a cling on a very menacing cling on snaggle tooth cling on is there and she runs she's like i'm getting out of here and then she runs into the arms almost of the alien

who tried to touch her cheek before and he says come with me and she's no no no no i'm dreaming i'm dreaming she's no no you're not dreaming i brought you here okay now here's my question Did you notice when she runs into axon, by the way? Yes. And they talk for a second. Yeah. That there's no smoke or anything. And then suddenly this puff of smoke appears.

Oh. Like in the background? Yeah. Right. Right. It looked like her pants were on fire to me. I literally like, the smoke is just coming up from her feet or pants or something. Like, what is on fire?

Okay. Get out of there. Do you remember our smoke machines? Yes. When, when they had the. on they would give an intermittent and it would shoot the smoke out in a pattern okay and the thing for what I recall is even after it was turned off there would still be one residual they would still be an extra little I think they had a smoke fart would pop out yeah there was a smoke

that's what I think right during their intimate conversation and it just came up in their faces I'm like where did this why where's that gaseous anomaly coming from yeah who had beans that evening. So yes, it just, I did not notice that, but you did. But what I thought was weird is he says, I brought you here. And then I started thinking about the whole thing. Okay, if you are a Borg drone with the recessive mutation of that, whatever happened, you end up getting this bonus of coming into this sanctuary every time you are regenerating. So why wasn't she always going there? Is it simply because she was not part of the hive mind anymore? That's why she's not experiencing it.

But it just, to me, it was strange. I thought, okay, she has that recessive gene. Every time she regenerates, she should have been going there every night that she's been on Voyager for the last three or four years, I thought. I think so, too, unless she took the red pill or the blue pill. And then. Okay, fine. Maybe she hadn't taken any pills.

She finally took the red pillar of the blue pill. And now she's in the matrix. That's a good enough answer for me. Let's move on. So he basically tells her, look, hey, you aren't dreaming. This is Unimatrix Zero. And he says, my name is Axum. I mean, I'm a board drone.

I have a designation. But here, I'm Axum. And he says that the great thing about being here is that all the drones can exist as individuals here. And he tells her, he says seven basic, or Anika, because he calls her Onica, you have the recessive mutation as well. and only one out of a million drones have it, but unfortunately, in recent times, about 200 drones have been deactivated so far because the collective has found out about them. And so this is the concern that he has. This is why he brought her back. And he says, look, we've designed a nanovirus,

which should mask the biochemical signature of the mutation so they can't be detected. But they need someone to release it into the collective. And Seven asks the obvious, uh, you're already on a Borg ship. Why don't you release it? And then we learned a very important plot point is that whenever they're regenerating, they're in Unimatrix Zero. But the moment they stop their regeneration cycle and they're back on the board cube sphere, wherever they're at, they completely have no memory of what happened before. They can't remember anything. When did the kid in this conversation, doesn't the kid run by early in the conversation? at one point he's like nope not yet oh the kid hasn't run by you no i didn't know where you were

and he's definitely not there yet no no he's just explaining you to matrix zero but when he's explaining the kid runs by and she's like she gets it she's like that kid he's not a drone he's probably in a maturation chamber so she oh shoot yeah right you're right you're right doesn't that happen early on yeah no no the kid is here she the kid is here the kid goes by early on and she's starting to put it together and she's like even him and he goes yeah he was still in the maturation chamber that he was just assimilated is what he's got yeah yeah just assimilated exactly yeah so that's in this scene that is in that is in yeah exactly that's right that's right you're right I just didn't write that down for some reason and and then uh so we set up the kid and yeah and that this is like yeah it's it's in

a recessive gene that's not just in fully you know developed drones but it's in you know recently assimilated drones it's all over the place so So it's, yeah, and they don't remember. That's the, that's the whole key here is they can't remember any of their individuality when they go back. So, yeah, it's very, yeah. And so he says that because she's not part of the collective anymore, seven, that she is the only connection that they have to the real world because they don't know anything once they enter the real world. They forget it all. So this is why he has called upon her.

And again, for me, I just, my. My question is, how did you call upon her? If she's severed from the, I just don't, I don't get it. It doesn't make sense. The Borg Queen's Chamber. We are back into that. Yes, we're back in the Unicomplex. The Chamber of the Queen.

And she's overseeing two drones working on the beheaded head of the drone from earlier. Harvesting the node from this drone severed head. Tony Sears head, basically. And his mouth was like, I'm sure it was from. Was it open? It was like horror movie. It was a little hard-ass, yeah. Can you do it?

Can you impersonate it? How did it look for the... Oh, wasn't it an askew? Was it like... Yeah, maybe. Did you notice who the drone that was removing this node from the severed head?

Was it Keith? It was Keith. Keith did it. Keith took Keith. How dare you, Keith, by the way. How dare you work for the drones? I love this. She goes,

uh, disembodiment. Too bad you can't experience disembodiment because it's the epitome of perfection. Yeah. So it's kind of letting us know that like she's had she has this unique experience as the drone right. Right. Because she can get disembodied.

Yeah. It was just a, it was a creepy line reading. It was a creepy line, creepy line reading. I love very much so. Very much so. So in this scene, they have discovered the carrier band. The carrier band has been isolated, but the queen says it's useless without the precise frequency. And while this is going on, two more drones have been discovered with the mutation

and the queen orders their cortical nodes removed and analyzed. They're in Spatial Grid 249, by the way. Thank you for sharing that. They're in the same one. That's rare. Usually it's only one per vessel, but two popped up in the same spatial grid. Two more in the spatial grid. Yeah. Four nine. Yep. I think we head back to Unimatrix zero right now to we go back to the Matrix. We go back to the Matrix. Yes. Yes. And we're in the Matrix, with the drones, with the drone sanctuary or the Matrix. Yes. And Onica and Axum are seated on a bench underneath some mingling all around them. It looked like a summer night in Georgia with some nice, you know, sheer. It looked like a wedding reception to me. It really did with all the white tenting.

And it looked beautiful. Nice lighting and everything. Very nice lighting. Kids are playing. People wandering around. Yeah. Another alien pops in named Sorral. So he starts his regeneration cycle and he ends up in Unimatrix Zero and seven slash Oner. Monica does remember him. She's like, oh, that guy looks familiar. And, of course, this whole time, Axom's like, yes, yes, that was your friend. And now Snacko Tooth, Klingon walks up, Korok. And he says, it was too much of a risk to bring her here.

And he starts complaining and saying this is- They start to get into a fight. They get about a big fight, right. Basically that Klingon's threatening, like, you know, I should kill you. Yeah, basically. Yeah. To Axum. And Axom goes, go ahead, kill me.

Because I'm just going to come back. You're tomorrow. Yeah, this is the matrix, dude. You can't kill me. It's kind of like Groundhog Day. You can't die in this one. Yeah. But you know who actually plays the peacemaker?

It's Laura. Laura comes up and says, hey, hey, hey, why don't you go sharpen your teeth? And we find out that Laura was assimilated at Wolf 359, and she is the one that stops this huge argument between the Klingon and Axum and 7. And just as Axom cycle was about to end, and he realizes it's about to end. says you have to go talk to your captain this is the only way that we can and then he disappears so he also says yeah before he disappears he also kind of makes a comment to seven he says you know your your implants that laura has pointed out yes you look different with those implants you don't

need those here we don't have to have any of the borg stuff here right that she doesn't have to look that way and i don't like how do you so you just you just think it away i mean i don't understand what do they i exactly i don't know it's a little it was a little bit of The rules felt a little fluid here. I agree. I agree. We have an exterior space shot of Voyager again, and now we're in the briefing room. An interesting briefing room set up everyone standing.

Nobody even needs a chair today. Well, it's a classic craker move. We're all kind of wandering, you know. Yes, kind of wandering the shot to each other, which I thought was good. All right. Can I make one notation here? This is my one notation. As excited and proud as I was of that profile hair shot earlier.

on the bridge. Harry's hair in this scene, way too quaffed. He just went to a salon. I just know. He's trying to get that promotion. He was, you know,

in the earlier scene, he's like, extra shudging up the hair. My hair. Yeah, I got to do a little more hair. I gotta get more attention. But yeah. Seven briefs Janeway

and the other senior officers regarding the request from Axum and the other mutated drones that help that they need. Janeway wants more information. She wants to know, she wants a fuller picture. How do we know this is real?

Like it was a dream. And the doctor goes, no, I monitored her REM cycles. Yeah. You know, she never reached REM sleep. Correct. During this time. So it has to be real. She was not dreaming it.

If she experienced it, it was a real experience. Yeah. So Janeway wants a little bit more information to tackle this problem or this issue. And that's when Tuvok suggests a Vulcan technique known as the bridging of minds. And he would initiate a mind meld between Janeway and seven with him acting as a telepathic conduit. So this is a very forward choice to make. The doctor says it sounds like a conference call to me. Yes. Or something. This isn't a conference call. He said something about conference call. Yeah, he does. He has a little funny line there for sure. We jump to the corridor and it's Janeway and

Chacote walking through the hallway. Janeway tells Chacote to stay at yellow alert. And he kind of volunteers. He said, look, I can do this. Yeah, let me do this. Let me do this. It's too risky. Yeah, you don't even do this, but she declines. They walk into the cargo bay. We find the doctor asking how many times Tuvac has performed this bridging of the heads. And Tuvac corrects him by saying minds, and he says never. And then my comment or my note here is, the doctor should never have made that mistake. If he's the doctor, he would have had that recording of him saying minds and him saying the heads thing to me that just seemed like it was a forced attempt by the writers to add a little comedy there because it just doesn't physically make sense

for him to say that like he's a computer program I thought it was the doctor actually choosing to say it wrong because he just doesn't believe that this is going to work like this bridge of heads it was kind of you know a dig the whole thing is not going to work that's a valid That's a valid excuse, too. I'll buy that. I'll buy that. That helps me a lot because that really bothered me for a second. I was like, wait a minute, he would never do that.

He knows everything that everyone has said. It's all recorded in his own program. He knows it. I also love when the doctor, yeah. I also love when the doctor says, have he done this before? And Tuvok's like, well, I watched a master to do it. I think I can rubble to what he did. That's a lot of confidence, Tuvok.

Yeah, I watched somebody. It's like, I don't know. I watched Georgia Bulldogs play football the other day. I'm pretty sure I can play wide receiver right now. Yeah, I don't think so. I've watched a lot of things I wouldn't do. Anyway, too, God bless you. I know.

Well, you know what? Not only God bless you, but it works. It does work. There in the forest. Janeway's there. He mind melds them both. I like the transition. We go to the, you know, once he starts doing the mind meld,

We tilt down to a monitor and we see the three, I guess, mind waves or, you know, wavelengths of their EKGs or whatever. And they're in sync. They're all together, yeah. It was a nice little transition. That is a great transition. It's working. Yeah.

So now we are in the forest environment again, like you, Matrix Zero. And seven is full on a canal. The hair is different. The hair is down. No one knows. And she's very, her personality is even. It's completely. Yeah, even her delivery of her lines, definitely.

And she's like, let's go find Axum. You know, it's softer. It's not as Borg-like as she normally is. So they go check out where Axum is. Now we have an exterior shot of the Borg complex, unicomplex. Unic called it, right? All right. Now we're in the Borg Queen's Lair, and I really like the way that Alan shot this scene,

beginning with what looks like Hamlet speaking to the skull. Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio. The only comment I have about her holding the skull is she's kind of talking to it. And then she hands it off to a drone. And it felt like it was styrofoam. It felt light. Oh, so if it didn't have the weight of, okay, of a heavy physical thing.

Yeah, and not, and think about it. It would be a, it would be heavier than a human skull because it has all the cybernetic implants also on there. So it should be, you're very correct in that assessment. It should have been a heavy handover, right? Yeah. I think so. It felt like a styrofoam, like something you put a wig on, you know, beauty parlor or something. It didn't feel heavy and weighted. Yeah. But she does hand it off. They put that head on a on a pole next to the other head.

And did you notice with the two heads on the pole as the camera came around? I think one of the heads was the Brent Spiner mold. That's what I read when I did some more research on this. Oh, you did read? I just guessed it. Yeah. Did you really guess that or did you look at memory of? I did not look at that up. It looked like Brent Spine and I was like, oh, my. Yeah, they used his head, which is really funny.

That is funny. It's so recognizable. I'm surprised they did that. I think a lot of people will not catch that, though, personally. I just think that because it's such a gory scene to think it's like a horror scene to see the other head being impaled on that on that little stick thing, whatever it is. It's just, I don't know. But the board queen. Yes.

Very well shot. And then the Borg Queen does freeze the readouts from these nanoproves or whatever the nodules that she's that she's dissecting. Yeah. And she isolates this frequency that they've been looking for. Yeah. And she tries to disrupt the frequency. But it doesn't work because the Borg drones have protected it by using a triaxilating modulation. So, you know, the queen is like, okay, that's fine.

I can't terminate the link very calmly. She says, then I will simply have to pay them a visit. And so now we know that she's going to send her drones, her minions into Unimatrix Zero and wreak havoc. It's so creepy seeing that whole scene with the head sitting there. It's just a very, very creepy scene. Yeah. But effective. We go to the forest next.

Janeway's there. Yeah, Janeway basically says, look, I can help you. but isn't this just prolonging the inevitable? And, you know, accent's like, well, what do you mean? I mean, maybe they won't find you for a year, 10 years, but eventually they will find you. What if we could make this a little bit more effective? And he's not sure what she's talking about.

But in essence, she says, what if we could make it so that you know what's happening the minute your regeneration cycle ends? And maybe you guys can bond together. And maybe you guys can do something. You could be like a resistance. Yes. Yes, a resistance movement. Underground is what this could be.

Yes. Yes. And seven is like, it sounds like you're talking about a civil war and suddenly there's a scream from off camera. We hear a scream and they basically head towards the scream and see that there's drones now in the Unimatrix Zero and they are attacking. First, it grabs, it looks like a Cardassian guy and he gets, and it's Tom Morga. Oh, yeah, it was Tom Morgia.

Tom basically takes the Cardassian guy out, and then we see another drone grab a woman, and she's also injected with the tubules, and her, basically, her image fritzes out and is gone. So they keep discovering these other drones. And now another drone is coming after little alien boy, who is just little tiny Tim is who he's chasing after. And right before, oh, the Klingon, yeah, the Klingon. The Klingon goes to protect the kid. And he actually, he fights that Bordron and that Bordron basically gets killed or disappears out of the Unimatrix. But then another one arrives.

And he takes the second one out, but the third one knocks him down at least what it is. Yeah. And right before he's about to get discovered is when Janeway intercedes and she comes in with a few moves of her own. Yeah, grabs the bat left. I never knew that Janeway. Jamie was so good with a Batelift. Whoa.

Takes out a board drone. Yeah, she did a Batleth scene before, but that's, she didn't remember it, though. That was in the World War II simulation. Yeah. She was with Battlet then. So she doesn't remember it. But yeah, she knew a few moves herself here. She knew a few moves.

Yeah, it was almost like she did a Chuck thing where she just learned it all immediately. So it happens. And guess what? Borg Queen is watching this. She's watching a live feed of this whole thing. Yeah. And it ends with her going Janeway. She's mad.

And Janeway, Janeway, again, it's very dramatic side. Yeah, very much so. We have a Voyager flyby, and we're on the bridge. Janeway comes in and Chocote says, how's your headache from her mind meld? And the greatest thing is she doesn't even answer him. She keeps walking straight to the ready room. And nods towards the room. She's like, get over here.

Let's go. And they go inside the ready room. And she's like, go ahead, take a seat. she's very serious and he he's very serious too he goes i prefer to stand yeah and she basically tells him how the borg have figured out how to infiltrate unit matrix zero and she wants to stop them she wants to give them some kind of way to take action to fight back yeah against these borg that are taking out their their you know matrix where they can be individuals right but but Really, the more important, the objective that Janeway has in this scene is she wants to know that Commander Chikote is behind her.

Has her back. Has her back. Yes, she supports her. Yeah. And she does say to him, she says that Blana and the doctor are working on something that will help them in the real world to remember back in the real world their experiences as individuals and to fight. So she's not going to do this without a support. right and he says well i'm with you because this could be a turning point in our fight against the borg so yeah he is supportive yeah he is supportive and uh j c unison yes they are there's a lot of

jc connecting in this there is yeah we'll come up to a big one later too so yes we will all right sick bay we're sick bay the doctor says that they do have a virus now that it will allow the drones to remember uh their experiences as individuals when they return from regeneration. And Janeway says, well, how do we deploy this? Just to be clear, this is the original nanovirus that Axum had designed, but it's been modified. Modified, exactly. That's what it is.

They've modified it so they'll be able to remember. And Janeway says, well, how do we deploy this thing? And Bologna says, well, all the board vessels are linked, right? And how are they linked? And seven responds, well, it's the central plexus. I just like that name. Yeah. It sounds like solar plexes.

I feel like that's the name of a business that we start in the future of some bricks and the murder store called the central plexus. Yeah. Yes. Hey, it could be like a, it could be a coffee place for all nerds to go to, the central place. Oh, yeah. I like it. Anyway, all right. All right.

So Seven says it's the central plexus. Belana says if we release the virus there at the central plexus, then it will be transmitted to all the Borg vessels, because they're like, instantaneously. Yes. Yeah. Good plan, though. Good plan. It's a great plan.

Unfortunately, the only Borg activity in the region is one tactical board. It's a classical board cube. Tactical board cube, heavily armed. It's the central plexus on this tactical board cube is shielded by multiple regenerative force fields. Like, it sounds hard. It's like Fort Knox. Yeah. There's no way.

Seven's like you'll be detected way before you get anywhere near the, central plexus. And Janeway's like, now meet me in engineering. We're going to find a way and prepare the virus. And this is an important scene, I think, later, even though we've only seen part one of this because seven's right. They're going to be detected. That's right.

There's no way to get in. So they're going to have to have a more clever plan. And that's Janeway's secret plan at this point. Yeah, which we don't know about. We don't know about yet. So we go to the hall. By the way, this hallway scene when Janeway is talking to seven. It was looped.

This whole thing was so heavily looped. I noticed there was, oh, goodness. I mean, there was looping with the alien kid earlier. There was looping with the snagletooth cling on. It was just, there's a lot of looping in this episode.

And looping that you can easily tell. It's looping. Yeah, yeah. You're right. But in the scene, the walk and talk with Janeway and seven, Janeway basically says,

you know, you were different and not just the way you look, not just your hair and stuff. You were more human and it suited you. Yeah. And Seven's a little, you know, skeptical, but she's, yeah, but it lands for her. She hears her. Yeah.

And they have that nice little walk and talk. Then we have a beauty shot of Unimitrix Zero. Mm. Beautiful shot. It looks like the coast of Italy or something. It looks like Portofino or something. Yeah. It is.

Sparkling little, you know. Seaside towns right there. Yeah. On the Mediterranean or something. It's very pretty. Beautiful. Yeah. Yeah.

But seven is now Onica. She's very all human. Yeah. And she finds Axum. Isn't she there just to say, hey, we're here to cover you. We got your back is what she's saying, right? Okay. Yeah.

And Axum gives us some information that the Klingons have banded together. They've given Battlis to others who can handle them. They have Horogian hunters that are going through the forest and everything. So it's kind of cool that they're arming themselves. They're going to band together and try to resist. And of course, there is a gift of a batlith from Korok to Axum. So Axum shows Seven his brand new weapon. And that's when Laura kind of budges in this says, hey, 11 more board drones.

They're 300 meters away. We've got to hide right now. Yeah. So Axiom and Seven runoff together. Run off together. Hide behind a rock. But now it's night immediately. So what's going on?

So it was day in the encampment. And now it's nighttime the minute the drones show up. I don't. No, I think it was night in that establishing shot. Oh, was it? Okay. Yeah, the Portofino shot of. Again, there's still no reason why it should be night, except to show off the lasers and stuff.

That's it. Well, this is where it happens. So they're hiding behind a rock. The drones come. There's three of them, I think, three drones. Right. They've got the laser sites. They're scanning everything.

But I guess org scans can't go through rock. No. Yeah. Or branches or leaves or anything like that. Any type of matter doesn't work. But the best thing is when the three drones are there, two walk off and the final drone that scans across Keith it's Keith exactly it's Keith overtime Keith there he is again getting overtime pay yeah they walk off and suddenly axon goes oh sorry he pulls his arm was around her yeah he's like my gosh

sorry about that and uh and then seven says you know that that felt familiar to me your arm around me like that and doesn't she say that was my elbow i'm just kidding he's and he says yeah we were friends you know sure and she says is that all we're just friends and so you start to suddenly she says elaborate right right he goes now is not the good now is not the right time and then she takes the initiative and just kisses him straight up she kisses him yeah yeah and axom says yes we were in a romantic uh relationship for six memorable years he says yeah i didn't after the kiss when she moved back it almost seemed like she was absolutely disgusted I mean, just the way she played that.

She was like, we were more than friends, weren't we? Why didn't you tell? I don't know. Maybe she felt betrayed. Maybe that's what she was playing. But it was an interesting choice. I feel like the whole idea of her because she, once she realizes that they were romantically involved, she's like none of that anymore. No.

And I don't understand why she would have that attitude. Wouldn't she be more curious about what kind of relationship do we have? Yes. Because we learn later that. It's, it was a, well, no, we learned later within seconds that this was a six-year-long relationship. Yes. That's one more year. It's common law marriage.

I mean, like, what the, okay. So I'm, I'm, maybe it's that she's angry that he left her. I mean, no, angry that that, that he didn't say that right away. So now she doesn't trust. Right off the bat. Okay. Yeah. Why didn't you tell me that before?

Okay. I'll buy that. I'll buy that. I'll buy that. All right. uncomfortable because she says I should return to Voyager. And then Axum goes, Onika, and she says, my name is seven of nine. So she completely just toss it out.

She's like, I'm done. That's a breakup scene. And I'm done with you. And I'm done with our relationship of six years plus three that I've been on Voyager. So nine years that we've been together. She goes back to the alcove. She wakes up. And you can see that she's a bit flustered.

Very flustered. Very flustered in her alcove Cargo Bay with the hammers and recycling. So we go to a fly by Voyager, cut inside to engineering, and the captain's in there. Everybody's in there. By the way, Neelix is in there. Why aren't we on the bridge? I don't know. Why is Neelix there?

Wait, Neelix was in there? He's there. Does he say anything? Oh, he says anything this whole episode. Was he next to everybody? I don't even remember seeing him. He popped in in a couple of shots. I was like, oh my God, why is Neelix here?

That's so weird. It was kind of weird. But the doctor does say that, you know, can't you find something easier than this? tactical or are we don't we see a little little graphic on the on the yeah it looks pretty it looks a little hardcore yeah it looks hardcore why are we yeah yeah doctors like can't we do something easier like a sphere or something else but janeway you know basically says no we're we're going to do this i'm going to beam over there i'm going to release the virus yeah and seven says i should go yeah and and the captain's like no i'm going to do this tuvok pipes in he says he says

says, you know, directive, tactical directive 36 says the captain cannot place him or herself in a dangerous situation without being accompanied by a security officer. Tactical directive 36. Therefore, he's got to come along. And Torres says,

well, uh, not just the two of you. Yes, you'll need an engineer because Starfleet tactical directive 36A. A says that you need an engineer. And Paris is like, there is no 36A you're that doesn't it 30D doesn't exist yeah

Dors is like there is now I like that she's making things up because it feels like Paris is rubbing off on her there you go his kind of like that yeah his little brand of bending the rules yeah making stuff up seat of your pants is now rubbing off on his lady okay okay but Janeway declined she goes look you know I I I don't need anybody here you guys have to stay here you have your orders set of course mr paris so now we have she takes off yeah she's out chikote chikote follows her out yep we go on the hall next and they're walking and talking and he says you know i know i told you i supported you but it's not necessarily unconditional right yeah that if you want to do this you're going to have to take two vok and torres along

with you and james says and if i don't that's when chakotay says well then i can still pull a few strings as first officer. I could persuade the doctor to say that you're medically not fit to perform this mission. And Janeway was like, well, you know, I was hoping for your unconditional

support. And Chikotay said, well, this is the best that I can do. And Janeway is like, fine, I'll take it. So we have a nice little another JC moment where they have a little bit of an argument, but they pull it back together. So they're a nice. Such a good team. Good team. I love it. Oh, and she has that funny line. Tell them the pack light. So. Oh, yeah, tell them Buddy Lion from Braga and Manaski there

I like it. That was nice. Tell them to pack light. And then the lights flicker in the hall. Oh, that's right. That's when we cut to the bridge. Harry's in the captain's chair. There you go. I can't get promoted, but at least I'll be in the captain's chair. Yes, you are. Yeah. He says there's some kind of signal, some kind of unknown transport signal. Someone's trying to tap into the main computer is what I said.

Yeah, trying to tap into the main computer. And then the lights on Harry kind of go greenish. So we know that's bored green. So you, I love it. So you see the last word on the bridge of Kerry. He's like, Captain. And then it cuts over and it's off camera. And he's like, I, what is he saying? I think it's for you.

Yeah, I think it's for you. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. So Janeway shows up on the bridge. And now we see it's the Borg Queen. And they have their little tete a tete back and forth. Yeah, they sort of, it feels like they're negotiating a little.

The Bork Queen honestly makes a very generous offer. She's like, she does. I'll help you guys get back. You know, I know you've been in touch with Starfleet already. So I can help you with trans work technology to get back. I think it's a very generous offer. And she also tries to call Janeway on the fact that she knows Janeway's up to something. And Janeway's playing very coy.

She's like, no, no, I'm not really doing anything. I'm fine. I'm good. And the Borg Queen says, you know, stay out of things that don't concern you. Right. It's not your business. And she says, you know, if you don't take this off, offer, I may not be so accommodating next time. So it's a very threatening. It's like the bosses of two

mafia families. It's talking to each other right now. Do not come into my territory. Do not try to do business in my area. You just, you know, just get out. Get out. And then she has that, yeah, you want to say that little comment at the end, which was like, what is this about where she says to Harry, I'll see you soon, Harry. Not I will. She just will see you. We'll see you soon, Harry. very creepy which i guess is just about like taking the most innocent character on the bridge in that moment and threatening the most not that he's the most vulnerable but you know what i mean harry sort of represents like like the captain's you know the captain's kid in a way yes so i'm going to take your youngling and mess with them you know yeah if you mess with my people yeah but then i kept

thinking man this this would have been this is an untied uh this is a loose end that's never been tied that comment you know and i i also feel like this could be this could be something that could have got led into a future spin off of any or something you know it could have been this could have been the the launching point of a voyager film if they filmed one a year after we've wrapped i mean there's so many weird little comments like this so yeah i don't know if i did you think i reacted appropriately for that yeah did you think that i should have been more freaked out like should i be like what the what does she mean by what should i been like like just shocked?

No, you're okay with it. I was good. I was, this was a good scene. I like this. All right. Let's move on. We go to the Delta Flyer next. Paris is helping get it ready with Balana there. That's right.

They're in the cockpit. Watch out for those starboard plasma injectors. They run a little hot. He's kind of basically going over all the details. And she's like, you're very meticulous. Like, I've never seen you quite so meticulous about all the details. And he says, well, it's because you. volunteered for this insane mission.

So he's worried about her. Yeah. And he even says, well, you know, maybe I could just sabotage the, you know, the flyer. So you can't go. And she goes, well, then I'd have to put you on report. And you might lose that new PIP. Yeah. And he, I like this moment.

He's very sweetly. He says a small price to pay. It is a sweet moment. But all I could think about when you were in that staging of where you're standing, you were right there on her back. And it reminded me of that scene when you guys got the TV. and she was on your back and you were like panic sweating yeah so I was thinking man maybe she was panicked sweater she might have been so you know you were right there like her

like her hair was on your face practically and I just made me think of you panic panicking about her being on your back I'm wondering if I don't mind if I'm the one hovering over somebody I just don't want to be hovered over okay so you can be the hoverer yeah that's that's fine is what you're saying agree that's that's fine yeah okay we go back to the bridge we see the cube on screen now this tactical cube Janeway's getting ready to leave yeah Chicootay says is there anything while you're gone is there anything you want done I could you know recalibrate the gap gravity plating

clean the carpets maybe good job Joe Manaski Brandon Braga very funny very cute it's cute this is a JC moment this really is because they has a hard time talking about his feelings yeah but they hold hands in this scene good She offers her hand out. They hold hands. And it isn't a handshake. They're holding hands like a couple.

It's like, excuse me, what captain on a naval ship is going to sit there and hold hands with their FO? No, none. Hello. Agreed.

J.C.'s rejoice. Okay. We go to Unimatrix Zero. Seven is there. Basically filling them in on what the captain's doing and telling them that they're going to have to behave like drones. when they wake up. Yeah, you can't act all like, yeah, discombobulated or you're going to get caught.

Yeah. It's going to be disorienting, but you got to stay, like, play the part. Yeah. And Axum says, yes, you know, just gather tactical data, yeah, weapon systems data, anything you can, and then we'll all meet back here to coordinate our next move. And he also says, and if everything goes well, we'll be working very closely together, like they're going to, you know, bond as a unit. Yeah, he's like, now that it's out there, he's like, okay, let's go back.

back to our romance. And she's like, nope, we're going to work as colleagues only, nothing more. Yeah. And Achievement says our previous friendship is irrelevant. Yeah. And he's like the scorned lover here. He's like irrelevant. Well, now that I'll be able to retain my memory, I'll keep that in my mind.

And he walks away pissed. He's not happy at all. He's like, okay. I spent six years with you every day for six years. And this is how you treat me. We go out to space, the cube flies by, and then we see it's in battle with Voyager. Voyager's firing on this tactic cube. Yeah.

And we cut to the bridge. Chucote's there in the captain's seat. Yeah. I'm yelling a lot in here. I was happy with my volume, by the way. Oh, I like the intensity of that. Oh, okay. I like this a lot from, I mean, Chiquote and you and me, all of us.

I thought we were pretty intense in a good way. Yeah. We're fighting away. We do hit one of their shield generators and get. get it, create some fluctuation in their shield generator. Yeah, because the whole goal is to be able to beam into that cube. So that's why we're doing this. The flyer moves into position now.

And inside the flyer, we see this battle. They're looking out of their window. So they're hiding off in the distance waiting for the opportunity. Right. But Janeway's watching this battle. Voyager's just going at it with the cube. And Tuvok does detect the ventral axis. Their secondary emitter has been damaged.

And so Janeway says, cut primary power thrusters only so we're basically going to like quietly head towards this cube like an electric vehicle yes very quiet like a prius like a tesla yes okay and we go inside the cube back to the borgs the queen's layer i guess and the queen detects that the tactical cube is under attack she pulls it up on her view screen we go back to the bridge the the flyer is getting within transporter range we learn we're still hitting you know distracting firing at them yeah firing at them back to the queen's lair and she's watching and she's like she sees the flyer he sees it off in the side like she's smart yeah he says um what does she say she says captain

i expected something more cunning from you yeah that's what she says yeah inside the flyer torres is is getting ready she's like it's time you see everyone all gearing up they're all holding phaser rifles Janeway says, what about their ventral shield grid? Tuvok says it's still fluctuating at a rate of 0.06 terahertz. So Janeway says align our transporters to match. So now we know what's happening. They're going to do this little secret beam in. This little secret beam in between this fluctuation.

And back on the bridge, Chakotay and the team realized that the Borg have, you know, the queen has now detected them. And we go out to space and we see the cube now fires at the Delta Flyer. and they blow up my ship. They blow it up. Thinking about what Tom was thinking at this moment. He's like, not the flyer. Couldn't you have taken any other shuttle in our shuttle bay?

Other than the flyer and use that. But no, the flyer. And it actually hurt watching the flyer get blown to bits. It just, it was painful. Yeah. Very sad. It was very sad. But we do cut inside this.

tactical cube hallway, and we see that the team has beamed in just in the nick of time. They just made it before the flyer. Thank you. And then we go to the bridge, and the doctor's on the bridge. I notice him for the first time because he says they're inside. And he's got to be in the grid. Wait, we don't see him. They don't establish him before this.

I don't know. I didn't notice him before. That's so weird. But he's working on the bridge. But he doesn't even need to be there. have been in in uh yeah the sick bay sick bay yeah but he's there with us it's the finale episode all right they're going to have everyone over there yeah throw them all together he's got he says uh they're inside we have a big hit harry says direct hit to the port in a cell we're venting plasma

yeah and paris suggests maybe we should back off yeah he's no stay close chokotin wants to stay close yeah we go inside the hallway again the team is walking their weapons are ready. We cut to the queen. She's watching all this on a monitor. Yeah, two drones come up on the party, the away team, and they're taken out. They're knocked out. Two more come up behind Torres, Torres fires. Now it's just nothing. They've already adapted. Exactly. They're adapting. They keep coming. Now we go to space. Yeah. And Voyager flies by and the cube is firing at it. And the cube hits the port in the cell, which you said three scenes earlier. That they hit the port in a cell. That they had already hit it.

In this flyby, it hits our nacelle, and then we go back inside and you say Hullbreach. So the visual effect does not match the dialogue. Like this visual effect when they hit the port nacell should have happened before. Earlier. Oh, my God. Because I say Holbridge, deck 11. And then you say they're targeting our warp core, right? So now it's a whole different part of the ship.

They're not hitting the cells, but we just saw this. We saw this. And sometimes in editing, they will move scenes around to make, you know, it might have been scripted in a different order. Right. And they may have moved things around just to build it. But sometimes those Viz effects have been started before the editing is even done. Right. So they may have originally thought that Viz effect out in space was going to happen before you said they've hit our port in a cell.

And then they moved it. Okay. They just left the same Viz effects. Yeah. Anyway, it was a little discrepancy. Yeah, a little discrepancy. can see there. Yeah. Okay. We are back into the Borg Cube. Janeway basically comes upon a force field. They have to take the long way around. But at that moment, Borg drones come through

the force field and a big hand-to-hand combat scenes basically happens where we see one by one our heroes fall to the drones. And they're getting assimilated. Yes. And this was not anything they talked about, right? This was never like. No, not before this. No. So we're, you know, the audience is I've never seen. Yeah. No, the audience gets freaked out. This is the end of the line here. All three of them are getting assimilated.

Okay. So anyway, so we're back on the bridge. The doctor is there. That's when he says their life signs are destabilizing. And we're thinking, this is the end of the line. And Chikote says, so far, so good. You can take us out of here now, Tom. And we're like, what?

This is part of the plan. I was like, wait a minute. I had to stop and go back. I was like, what? This was part of the plan. I know. So it cuts back and we see, well, first we see, yeah, Voyager takes opch, right? So Tom gets us out of there.

They're out of there. They're out of there. Runs away. It runs for their life. Run away. And then we cut back interior inside the board cube. And first we see Borgified Tuvok. We see a shot of Borgified Tupac.

And he starts marching along. Yeah. Then we see Borgified Torres who, man, she looks good. Yeah, she looks bored. She really does. Of the three of the trio, she looked the best. She was the best. Yes.

And then you see Borgified Janeway, who doesn't look as good as Torres, because there's some weird wrinkle. She looks like the human version of a Sharpay, like a charpe dog with wrinkles. Like there's a lot of extra wrinkles on here. Her eyes a little droopy. It doesn't look good. But Torres was a fashion model when it came to her Borg persona. Yeah.

But it does push in on Janeway's close up as a drone. And then her head sort of snaps to one side. Yep. And that's where we go out of the season. Yeah. the last thing we see is Sharpay Janeway drone and then it's oh my god it's the end of the episode it's very um so far so good though it's yeah so now we're thinking yeah that was what is this plan yeah how are they're well i'm excited to see the sequel that's for sure the uh part two of this

yeah um matrix they've got to go into the matrix like yeah what is jane way's going to be able to like go in the matrix and like we're going to see human genoa they can release but now that they're borgified they can release the the nanovirus right that's the goal of nanovirus only only helps them remember it's not going to make her human again no but it's to help all of them remember who they are so they can have a resistance so that was the whole goal but well anyway let's we'll see what happens this is all conjecture right now but so so let's don't think janeway finished out season seven as a borg my memory and i know i don't remember a lot but i'm going to i'm going to i'm going to bet money that we don't that janeway's not permanent you didn't see that all in season seven is

seven of nine trying to rehabilitate captain janeway as a board trying to get hard the tables of turn so what is your lesson from part one is there a lesson for you this is a hard one for me it was it was a very action oriented it was not a philosophical morality tale to me as as much as some of our episodes. But I guess the one thing I took away from this is like sometimes doing the right thing for the greater good is more important than your own personal interests. Like Janeway was willing to put it at risk herself clearly. And even her crew, because she thought the greater good,

the tens of thousands of Borg that could be saved and the future of potentially saving others from being assimilated, it was worth the risk. So sometimes doing the right thing is worth the risk, your own personal risk. That's my moral. I like that. I like that. I think I'm going to go with that. Yeah, because I've got nothing else. Yeah, the more that I think about that is just, yeah, doing the right thing, even though it's, even though it's the road less chosen, you know, it's the unpopular choice. And you're right. I mean, you're basically going in to do something that, you know, Jamie could have easily said, you know what?

Too bad for those borg. We're out of here. But she really did for the greater good of the universe. She went ahead and took on this gargantuan task of trying to help out these ailing and, you know, individual borgs as I would see it or describe it. But yeah, you're right. The greater good. I do like that theme in that lesson.

What's your rating? I'm going to give this, I'll give it an 8.3. Ooh. I give it. Yeah. Because the, you know, I like the storyline. I pretty much for the most part. Still very, very unsure how Axum brought her into, you know, Matrix Zero to begin with.

Yeah. But if I'm going to ignore all that, I'm going to go with an eight-something rating for this one. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to, I'm going to go a little lower. I feel like there's some holes in the logic of things with this. virtual reality and Seven's abilities to connect

or sudden abilities to magically connect to them. I'm going to give this a 7.8. What if you had no, what if you ignored all the holes in logic? What would your... 7.9. Oh, you only give it a 0.01 difference

between the two. It's not just that. It's just that, I mean, Nielix didn't say a word in this episode. Ah, yeah. And Paris getting promoted it made no sense to me. As happy as I am that whatever, I guess,

the Paris gets a promotion, it feels like a wasted opportunity. That if you're going to do that, do it off of something that matters, not just randomly at the beginning of an episode for no reason. No reason. I'm going to revise my rating.

I'm going to a point one. I'm going to drop it 0.2. Okay. Yeah. It's a good fundamental setup for another season. It leaves us on a big clip. hangar in a good way, but the ride didn't have enough highs and lows for me and had too many holes. So 7.8. I'm going back to the 7.8. All right. Well, don't keep us waiting. What is the

Abbaugh and Captain Group rating, average rating for Matrix Zero, Part 1? I was going to lower it one more, but I didn't. 7.7. 7. 7. I was 7.8, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a, that makes sense to 7.7. Yeah. Okay. There you go. All right. There we go. Cool. We got morals and themes.

We got it all. All right. Well, everyone, thank you for tuning in to our recap and discussion of Unimatrix Zero, part one. And join Robbie and I when we watch the part two of this episode, Unimatrix Zero, part two. And we will have our recap and discussion of that sequel next week. in a bork,

but B. B. B. Bhopi, bork, B, Burt,

Burt, Bhopal, B, Mapp. B, Buh. You know, but

Thank you.